The Walls Must Crumble
by Harrygirlie
Summary: He could scarcely bear to remember the look on her face, the utter hopeless shock slackening her features. Was it worth it? Was breaking her heart and making her hate him worth the relative safety of having nothing to do with one another?
1. Breakdown

1/06

...I decided a small bit of tweaking was in order, seeing as how I started this tale about two years ago...no worries, REAL update soon. :)

_Why are you gone? _

The simplicity of the words almost frightened her, nearly as much as the salty, frigid water covering her to the waist. A cool hand, pale as moonlight, gently cupped her cheek, running a thumb softly over her cheekbone, smudging away the moisture falling from the eye above it.

When she opened her mouth to speak, she was unable to do so, as though her voice had entirely fled her throat, and a moment later, the hand dropped from her face. A small splash could be heard across from her; from the sound, something small and heavy had been dropped into the cold, shadowy water. Her heart hammered in a strange staccato against her ribs as her silvered surroundings melted away.

The shrill buzzing of the alarm clock startled Chihiro quickly awake. _Another weird dream_, she thought blandly. She was utterly sick of these strange sequences playing out in her mind at night. They held a sense of not being make-believe, not fantasy, not a mosaic of released stress. No. They seemed to her to be terribly symbolic, and yet the meaning escaped her. A soft male voice, a caress on the cheek, and the inability to respond to a simple question. Something lost in the water, the scene dissolving into nothing.

Chihiro put a hand to her temple, where she could feel her heartbeat through the thin skin. _This has got to stop. What the hell is wrong with me?_ Her parents, she knew, meant well, but if they caught wind of this latest abnormality, it was done; she'd no doubt see the inside of a psychiatrist's office. The very _last_ thing Chihiro wanted, considering the odd things that might come trickling out of her mouth. Things that were like the vague imprints left on a second sheet of paper, once things have been written on the first; not quite memories, just scraps of images, shreds of sound. She might let her tattered mind show, expose claims of running endless baths, of befriending a shadow; perhaps he would coerce her to admit that, sometimes, for reasons she didn't know, she would mistakenly refer to herself as "Sen".

It was like knives behind her eyes, every time she came close to remembering. It was, she admitted to herself, probably enough to make her insane; that is, if it hadn't already. So, mostly she pretended that she didn't feel halved, nor worn through in spots, and certainly not forgetful. Denying helped day by day, but there were times when she would see a flash of steel-gray eyes, or catch a whiff of some strange, heady herbal fragrance, and the knowledge of her amnesia soured her little pretend.

She was kidding herself, she knew that, as surely as she knew how inadequate the effort was. As much as she didn't understand the connection, she knew that this "Sen" was still inside of her, and although buried, although nearly immobile for all of the impediments Chihiro had set against her, she remained the childlike voice in the back of her head, always whispering...

_It cannot be undone. _

"Shut up," Chihiro hissed aloud, wanting more than anything for Sen to stay quiet, even if only for a day. Living as a normal teenager, even for a mere twenty-four hours, was a luxury she had never experienced.

"CHIHIRO!"

Chihiro rolled her eyes at her mother's call, and climbed out of bed, shoving her feet into her slippers and sighing. _And so begins another day_, she thought with an inward groan, allowing her worries to sink to the back of her mind. She walked briskly out of her room, grabbing her bathrobe from the hook by the door as she passed.

The water felt unusually hot on Chihiro's skin; ridiculously, her skin felt chilled, as it would if she'd _really_ stood waist-deep in cold seawater..._Stop it_, she scolded herself, pulling conditioner through to the very ends of her long hair and wishing she could stop thinking such absurd things.

After her shower, Chihiro quickly ran a comb through her wet hair and went into her room to pick out an outfit for the day. Pulling on the jeans lying on the floor of her closet and snatching a T-shirt at random from the drawer, she quickly finished getting dressed and jammed her feet into the nearest pair of shoes, which happened to be rather worn sneakers.

Glancing in the mirror, she heaved a sigh. Fitful sleeping did not appear to agree with her. She rummaged in her purse for her eyeliner, and hurriedly rimmed her eyes in black, thinking vaguely as she did so that this was unlikely to make her look any more well-rested. After carefully blotting over her purplish under-eyes, she decided her appearance was unlikely to improve too much further, and, scooping her book-bag onto her shoulder, took the stairs down to breakfast.

"Chihiro, sit up straighter," her mother chided as she set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of the girl, who was staring sullenly at the ceiling and dragging a hand through her damp, already-tangled hair.

Chihiro shot a glance at her mother, and in an act of what she herself knew was needless defiance, slid lower in her chair, not stopping until her chin was level with the table's edge.

Her mother didn't appear irritated, but Chihiro was experienced enough to pick up on the little subtleties betraying that, in fact, she quite was. Her right hand, which rested atop the chair next to Chihiro, fingernails painted like large cranberries, was looking a bit white-knuckled. Her face was set in neither a smile nor a frown, but a small movement back near her ear showed the tiniest muscle working in her jaw.

Chihiro didn't have much time to contemplate her mother's silent anger, or to feel remorse, for that matter, because her father swept suddenly into the room. He dropped the day's newspaper at his place setting, and went over to the coffee pot to pour himself a fresh mug. All this he did without more than a half-smile to his only child, who sat back in her seat and stabbed at her eggs, unenthused.

As the minutes wore on, Chihiro's mind began to stir, drudging up those prickling, uncertain feelings once more. The air in the kitchen seemed to warm and thicken, as though Chihiro were standing over a cooking pot. Lately, it seemed she'd begun to feel this way around her parents with alarming frequency. She knew, in some sheltered compartment of her heart, that she'd been deprived of parents, effectively orphaned, during that time that eluded her memory. But in the present, the novelty of being part of a family again had very much worn off. She'd dissolved the natural childhood bond of dependency, the ties that bound her instinctively to the two awkwardly silent adults sitting with her. And although the details were hidden from her, she was deeply aware of the lost connection, aware that she had changed, and so had her family life, although she could not recall the circumstances. The present state of her relationships with her parents seemed to consist mostly of going through a set of daily motions.

"Chihiro," her father said suddenly, biting the word off, rustling his newspaper as he unfolded the Business section. His eyes met hers over the top of his paper, narrowing slightly. "Don't forget to come straight home after school. We need every set of hands we can get."

Chihiro closed her lips firmly against a sarcastic retort. She wouldn't forget. Her family had finally grown tired of the robin's-egg color of their house, and was painting it a bland shade of tan. Chihiro much preferred the current bright blue to the boring oatmeal color her parents had selected, but had failed to sway them.

Sighing, she nodded and picked up her slice of jelly-smeared toast, nibbling experimentally on the corner. She really wasn't hungry. The recurrence of her strange dream had stripped her of any appetite she may otherwise have had upon waking.

After a few more moments of utter silence, save for the occasional rattle of the newspaper and clink of silverware against plates, Chihiro abruptly stood; so abruptly, in fact, that her chair skidded two feet backwards as she did so.

"I'm going to school," she informed her parents, with a hollowness to the words that surprised even her. Her mother glanced up from her food and smiled slightly, her previous anger having melted away. Her father didn't bother to remove the paper from before his face.

"Goodbye, Chihiro."

"See you this afternoon," her mother said, before digging into her eggs once again. Something about that simple action was almost entrancing; Chihiro found with a sickly feeling that she couldn't look away. As her mother closed her lips around a forkful of food, something in Chihiro's mind distended, reached the breaking point, and snapped violently, like a rubber band that's been pulled too tight. Her breath caught in her throat. _No_.

One of the fragments of memory was materializing, gaining in size and clarity, overtaking her vision. In front of her very eyes, an image flashed: her mother and father, shoving food relentlessly into their mouths. Completely forgetting she existed. There was a sensation of emptiness, as though her parents were the only figures on a landscape she couldn't quite see. But she did clearly see them stuffing themselves, indulging in insufferable gluttony, appearing to be spellbound. And suddenly, in a second flash, they were pigs. _Pigs_.

_Let me take you to see your parents. _

Her father lowered his paper, wearing a worried expression identical to her mother's. "Chihiro?" he queried slowly. He sounded as though he was speaking through water; his voice sounded garbled, like a record being played backwards.

A scream crashed irresistibly against her clenched teeth, but rather than release it, she turned on her heel and fled, ran, as though something nightmarish were chasing her. Nearly knocking over the vase in the front hall in her hurry, she flung open the front door and rushed out into the street. Suddenly, she was unaware of her surroundings; she could only sense the scream as it won, gushing from her mouth with throat-tearing force.

"CHIHIRO! You forgot your backpack!" Her father had come to the door to shout; there was a delay of several seconds before his daughter's odd condition seemed to register. "Chihiro! Come back here right this instant!"

But Chihiro had the strangest sensation of losing control of her feet; they were somehow taking her into a run, then a sprint, as though they didn't actually need her direction at the present time. It felt as though every muscle and tendon was straining towards a common goal, one that she did not know. She was being drawn somewhere, that much was certain; she couldn't pretend that it didn't frighten her.

_You must never come back here without me, do you understand? _

Her breath was coming in short gasps now, her horror finally screamed out. She gulped air as she ran, her heart threatening to burst from her chest. A sensation of going downhill, although she couldn't be entirely sure. Her vision was blurry, the trees she knew must be surrounding her appearing as nothing more than gray-green blobs. Her legs began to burn, like the centers of acid-splashed wounds. The throb at her temples had been dull till this point, but as her breathing started to hitch, that ache sharpened almost unbearably.

And suddenly, she stopped.


	2. Passage

1/06

...continuing the revisions. Read on, loves. :)

The overgrown, grassy expanse at her feet was littered with weather-beaten stones. Dozens of them, shaped into tiny houses.

_Some people believe little spirits live in them. _

_Oh my God, _Chihiro thought with a sort of weary desperation. Now that the unnatural drive had left her feet, they seemed unable to hold her upright any longer. Just as she was sinking slowly to her knees, the blinding ache inside her skull reached a fever pitch. Blurred colors began to fly past her eyes like a video reel on fast-forward, impossible to separate into single pictures.

After what seemed like an eternity of dizzying, nondescript memory rushing through her mind, Chihiro began to see images stand out amongst the mix. A young woman with long, dark brown hair, not entirely unlike her own. An elderly woman, smiling widely and fingering a length of shimmering purple thread. A black monster, grotesque in size and face, holding a mound of shining pellets. A boy, older than Chihiro, with eyes like aged pewter and charcoal hair that dropped to his chin...

This last memory brought a surge of emotion so strong that Chihiro fell forward from her kneeling stance, her hands hitting the ground jarringly. _Who? s_he wondered, startled to find that her eyes were dripping. _Who was that boy?_

And yet the deluge continued, though that single image had undone her and dissolved. A grimy bicycle, emerging from a column of mud. Small, white hands clutching a hunk of coal. Three tumbling off-green heads.

_Sen. _

Voices tumbled amidst the visual chaos, all speaking the same word. _Sen_. The voices wove together, combined, began to sound like a single person, calling her, calling _to_ her... But no. That was a false name. Not her given name. _It was...a label_, Chihiro guessed wildly.

_From now on, you will be called Sen. _

A choking kind of wail rose in her throat. _I'm not meant to know these things_, she thought with something like anger. _I left, didn't I?_ She hated not to understand, and Chihiro most certainly did _not _understand. Almost unthinkingly, Chihiro brought her fingers gently to her cheeks, mimicking the caress she had received in her dreams.

_Why are you gone? _

She bit her lip to keep from letting out a sob of frustration. _Damned if I know!_

Almost without even realizing it, she was suddenly staggering to her feet. Something was building in her, something that felt awfully like an animal rousing itself and stretching inside her skin. Shuddering, she was aware of that same disconnected sensation stealing over her feet and up her legs, and then she was moving again.

At first her feet took her walking at a normal pace, then quickening to a run, and soon dashing down a rocky dirt road. Chihiro had no idea to where she was being drawn. She blinked against the quick-moving air that streamed past her face, knowing she couldn't stop. She may not even be physically _able_ to. She wasn't entirely keen on assessing exactly how much control she actually had...best just to let this strangeness run its course.

She tore down the forest path, half-tripping in a wheel-rut, but pressing on, kicking up dust behind her. A foreign feeling of urgency possessed her, one that was not truly hers, but of this..this _force_, that made her calves burn and her head throb.

Chihiro was halfway blinded by her own velocity, and didn't notice the faded stone building ahead of her until her feet stopped moving, so abruptly that she fell forward, catching herself on one knee.

In this position, her eyes were on the same level as those of a mossy, rotund statue, the face of which grinned eerily. She stood slowly, her gaze fixed. When she was standing at her full height, the statue only came up to her ribcage. She had the oddest feeling that it should have been taller...or perhaps, she was meant to be shorter...

Her feet came to life again, propelling her past the statue, which, in passing, revealed itself to have two faces. As this newest strange detail was sinking in, her feet ceased their much shorter trek.

She looked ahead, her heart rate doubling as her gaze was lost in the black shadows of the tunnel before her. _The tunnel,_ she thought, unable to explain to herself why the mere sight of it was so striking. It was a good thing she hadn't eaten much in the way of breakfast, because the excitement that coursed through her at that moment was so intense she thought she might be sick.

An oddly insistent breeze wound about her ankles, drawing a number of leaves past her and into the shadowed passage.

_The wind...it's pulling us in. _

And she could feel more than that...an inescapable tugging forward. Her feet were moving of their own accord yet again, scraping roughly through the pebbles that littered the ground. Her heart was like a caged thing in her chest, beating so quickly she worried it might burst.

As though affixed to chains, her legs were drawn powerfully forward, and she walked into the tunnel. The force that had seized control of her was stronger than its predecessor, and perhaps that was to account for the fear that would have had her struggle against her invisible bonds. But the force was too great; she was being brought forth, having a curious sensation of almost being pulled out of herself.

_This is some sort of magic,_ she thought faintly, one foot being placed before the other, making her slow way down the dirty tunnel. Oddly enough, the wind that had seemed wont to entice her to enter was absent inside the actual structure; the air scarcely moved, close against her labored breaths. The temperature in the enclosed space increased as she went farther and farther into its depths, adding to the foreboding that was solid as lead in her bones.

Finally, after what seemed an impossibly long stretch of dim heat, the tunnel opened into a gold-tinged, musty room. There was a vague air of travel about it, although there was no place for either a train or a bus to pull up. Sunlight filtered in through small, stained-glass windows, reflecting on the aged walls. And, of course, plenty of sunlight shone from the unadorned, open doorway directly in front of Chihiro.

Through the arched cutout in the cream-colored wall, the doorway exposed an expanse of velvety, sun-drenched grass, and strikingly blue sky. As innocuous, and even beautiful as the sight was, Chihiro knew, in some locked drawer in her mind, that this threshold was not simply one dividing indoors from out.

Breathing deep of the musty air, Chihiro took several strong, sure strides forward, nervousness rippling beneath her skin. She broke into a run, her feet pounding the concrete floor, echoing in the empty room. And within seconds, she was outside. Through the doorway.


	3. Encounter

Chihiro paused as the sunlight slid warmly over her. It was quite hot, but the cool breeze that skimmed over the lushly grassy hills helped assuage it slightly. Trying to regulate her breathing somewhat, she noticed what looked like a thin creek up ahead, and she decided to walk towards it.

The sound of her feet brushing through the thick grass was unusually noticeable, and she wondered vaguely whether there was another person at all near. If so, she certainly couldn't tell; the area was so silent that it felt strange. The atmosphere felt almost too still, unnaturally so.

Chihiro paused as the wind picked up slightly, soft and enticing. Instinctively, she turned to face the direction she had come. A peeling red building with a dim, open doorway met her eyes...and it was then that she finally heard something other than rustling.

A sort of low moan came from the peaked building as a strong gust toyed with her hair. In some vague way, the sound was very familiar, but no less disconcerting. Abandoning all pretense, she dashed forward, keen to escape from the foreboding that now crawled along her skin.

The ground was more uneven than the coat of grass had shown, and more than once Chihiro thought she'd come quite dangerously close to hurting her ankle. While this prevented her from running, she still made a rather hasty trip across the plain.

Finally, she came to the winding trail of rocks that she had seen; it cut through the grass like a line of rubble, with nothing particularly noteworthy about it. And yet...

_See? They were going to put a river here. _

But it _was _a river. She knew it, although precisely _how_ she knew, she didn't dare venture a guess. She stepped very carefully onto a large stone at the bank, and made her way slowly over the riverbed. Here and there, she noticed odd stones that appeared faintly damp, but generally, it appeared that the river had thoroughly dried up. Unsure what to think, she finished climbing over, then turned around to look back.

She gasped as a blinding flash went off in her head, and for a split second, the red building was not 50 meters away, but across an enormous black lake. The windows shone with warm, yellow light, and the curious structure was surrounded by other brightly lit buildings, with an ink-black sky as an ominous backdrop.

But just as quickly as it had assaulted her, the vision..._or memory_...was gone. A stabbing headache hurriedly developed to replace it, and Chihiro groaned lightly, massaging her temple as she pressed on. She could have sworn that the sun seemed brighter, as though she really had stood in the night for a moment..

She trudged up the set of mossy stones steps that met the riverbank, noting that the green stains were thickest at the base of an open-mouthed frog statue. Moss slicked beneath his chin and down his front as well, as though tracing a path to the river. But there was no water, and Chihiro strode past the statue, determinedly ignoring her growing unease.

Cresting the hill, she found herself at the edge of an eerily quiet town. She began to wander through a careworn, abandoned stretch of storefronts, all of which advertised themselves in faded paints as restaurants. The buildings may have once been brightly-colored, but presently the sun-bleached colors peeled from the walls.

_Looks can be deceiving._

Chihiro wanted very badly to scream, but the lurking strangeness in the air quickened against her skin, and she decided it might not be a good idea to make herself heard. _But no one's here,_ her common sense argued. Chihiro resolutely ignored that thought, sure that the present atmosphere was no more a figment of her imagination than the cobblestones beneath her feet.

Abruptly, the light breeze brought the scent of cooking meat to Chihiro's nostrils. Automatically, her mouth began to water, and her stomach gave a surge that highlighted its emptiness. But Chihiro staunchly walked down the street and past the visible steam spilling from beneath the awning of a nearby building. _It's not real_, she told herself, attempting to chase away her hunger. _You can't eat it_.

Gritting her teeth against the insistent roiling of her stomach, Chihiro quickened her pace; within moments, she came upon a large wooden bridge, headed at the opposite end by an enormous bathhouse. Most shocking, however, were the thick plumes of steam rising from the roof. _It's...it's actually working!_ Chihiro thought, stunned.

She stepped forward, nervously, somehow dreading the moment her feet would touch the worn wood of the bridge. She closed her eyes tightly as she stepped over the threshold, but no cataclysmic event occurred.

Relieved, she walked over to the vibrantly red railing and leaned on it, peering curiously over the side. She managed to catch a glimpse of a strange, black train entering a tunnel down below, before a voice behind her sent her heart pumping furiously into her throat.

"You shouldn't be here."

Chihiro wheeled around, panic drying her mouth like cotton.

"Leave! You must leave now!"

When she saw who had spoken with such anger and alarm, both her chest and head erupted in pain so intense that she could feel her eyes streaming.

The boy looked to be about eighteen, and very handsome, with charcoal hair falling against a strong jawline, and sharp green-gray eyes. Eyes that widened noticeably when he took in her face. His lips parted, but he didn't speak. He stared at her as though she were something unbelievable, impossible even; he could've been watching her fly, rather than stand still as a statue.

To Chihiro's immense disappointment, she did not feel more than a stinging trace of the recognition written in the boy's expression. The pain was subsiding enough that she felt she might be able to speak without her voice failing entirely, but the boy spoke first.

"Chihiro?" His voice came out in a strangled whisper. "You..." He took a step toward her, one of his hands raised slightly as though to touch her. "You can't be here."

She began to tremble, as a flood of feeling swept through her. Although the searing pain of before was now nearly gone, her eyes once again blurred with tears. _He knows me_, she thought, as her heart gave a great wrench. _And I have no clue who he is_. He took a second, slow step. _But I should_.

She met his eyes, willing him to understand, so that she wouldn't have to speak the awful truth aloud. It took a painful moment for dawning comprehension to darken his eyes. The hand fell back to his side.

"You don't..." he began brokenly, sending a fresh swell of tears to her eyes. She watched desperately as he swallowed; a split second later, he wore a hard, blank look.

"You don't know me, do you?" he asked brusquely, though Chihiro thought she heard a thin thread of disappointment in his voice.

The words were harsh, abrasive. A hot flood of guilt rinsed through her, and it was all she could do to force a reply from her throat.

"I...I can't remember." Her voice sounded fragile, even to her own ears.

He nodded, and there was no longer a single trace of emotion in his face. "I thought so." He stole a quick look behind him, and it was this action that drew Chihiro's attention to the dying sunset.

_Sunset!_ "Impossible! It can't even be noon yet!" she protested, disbelieving. "How is it...?"

His eyes burned like silvered embers. "There's no time for questions," he said sharply. "Leave. You must." He gestured to her feet. "You've already started to disappear."

_What? _Chihiro glanced down at her sneakers, and her stomach gave a sickly lurch. Her feet were little more than whitish mist; she could see the boards directly beneath them, as though through frosted glass.

She looked up at him, and although fear was climbing like bile up her throat, she swallowed hard and clenched her hands.

"I'm not leaving."

His eyes narrowed, flashing. "You have no other choice," he said forcefully,. "If Yubaba finds out you've returned—"

"Yu-baba?" Chihiro interrupted, something in her chest tightening at the name. The memory was there, a thin wisp in the torrent of thoughts currently swirling in her mind, but it was as immaterial as her body was fast becoming.

"I know the name," she breathed, clenching her hands at her sides. Her resolve hardened when she realized that her hands felt as though they were closing on nothing. "I'm not afraid of her, whomever she is."

The boy gave her an unreadable look. "Do not decide that too lightly." He glanced downwards, and inhaled sharply.

"We've wasted too much time." By his manner, he appeared to be furious with either Chihiro or himself...perhaps both.

"Here." After rummaging in the pocket of his tunic for a moment, he produced a tiny red pill. "Eat this." She took it from him warily, but when she saw that it rested in a palm through which she could see the ground, she decided it could certainly not worsen her situation to try the medicine.

"Chew it, and swallow," he instructed, and Chihiro nearly choked.

_Don't worry, it won't turn you into a pig. _

"It won't turn me into a pig?" she gasped, the bitter herbal taste lingering in her mouth even as her limbs grew opaque once more.

The boy's eyes betrayed a flicker of surprise. "You...remember that?"

Chihiro felt a heat behind her eyes, and before she knew it, a scalding tear fell to her cheek. "I'm not sure."

Seconds later, more tears followed. Embarrassment heated her cheeks, but she couldn't stop. She had never before felt so strongly how much was hidden from her consciousness.

"This is why I can't leave," she whispered, meeting his gaze, which softened slightly at the sight of her anguish. "Part of my mind is closed off from me."

The boy looked conflicted. He stepped towards her and closed a hand gently around her shoulder.

"Chihiro, you just ..._can't_. You can't stay."

She somehow found the strength to wrench out of his grip, though her knees threatened to buckle. "Of course I can stay. Apparently, I've done it before," she countered firmly, despite the shakiness at her core. "I'm sure I can manage."

The boy opened his mouth to speak, eyes flashing, but he fell silent, his eyes trained on something behind Chihiro. She glanced over her shoulder, back at the abandoned restaurant district, and her heart ceased to beat for a scant few seconds.

Paper lanterns, strung up alongside each building, caused entire streets to glow blood-red. In the unearthly light, shapeless black shadows oozed into restaurants, and appeared behind counters. They took seat on stools or in chairs, and every single one of them had eyes like spheres of moonshine; it seemed they were all affixed on Chihiro and the boy.

She didn't see any more, because the boy had grabbed her hand and tugged her back to face him. "Come. It's too late. It looks like your choice has been made for you."

Before she could ask him exactly what he meant, he began running, pulling her with him; his speed was impossible, dazzling. The wind created by their velocity whipped tears from her eyes. She couldn't see where she was, or where she was going; she was trapped in a blur, streaking through the darkened edges of town.


	4. Instruction

...and the tweaking continues...much love.

By the time the boy stopped running, Chihiro was gasping for breath, her lungs painfully empty and her hand aching from the force of his grip. Disoriented and dizzy, she would have collapsed, had he not been holding onto her. As it was, she slumped to her knees; feeling the extra weight, the boy finally released her, and she fell gratefully to the damp grass. She was never a runner to begin with, so having to keep up with a sprinter of unnatural speed had been exhausting.

The boy, having surveyed the inky sky above them, turned around to face Chihiro, his pewter-green eyes seeming to bore straight into her skin. She imagined it would be very difficult to have to lie to him, and hoped it would never be necessary.

"Do you remember how to survive here?" the boy asked briskly; she could tell, from his clipped tone, that he fully predicted her answer to be "no". Frustrated already, Chihiro found it rather easy to slip into anger.

"Do _not_ patronize me," she snapped. "You know I don't remember a damned thing." She glared heatedly at him, daring him to refute her statement.

The boy arched an eyebrow at her. "I see you've expanded your vocabulary," he remarked mildly. Chihiro scowled.

"You do realize that being condescending does absolutely _nothing_ in the way of helping me?"

The boy only smiled with what looked suspiciously like amusement, and offered her a smooth-palmed hand. She stared at it for a moment, before deciding to swallow her pride; her legs hadn't quite recovered from their trek, and she doubted it would be extremely easy to get to her feet on her own. Warily she grasped the proffered hand, and with his help, stood up again, her head finally beginning to feel as though it had stopped spinning on her shoulders.

The boy didn't release her hand immediately; instead, he brought his other hand to her shoulder, and Chihiro could clearly feel its warm strength through the thin material of her T-shirt.

"Listen to me, Chihiro."

Chihiro blinked, still not used to hearing her name issue from the lips of this unfamiliar boy. Realizing that he had paused to wait for some sign of assent, Chihiro nodded for him to continue.

"I'll help you across the bridge. But you _cannot breathe_ while you're crossing."

_Even the tiniest breath will break the spell. _

Ignoring the whisper, Chihiro attempted to clarify exactly what he meant. "You mean...I have to hold my breath the whole time?"

He nodded. "Exactly." A wry smile flitted briefly across his lips. "You were lucky last time."

Chihiro bit back a frustrated sigh, not remembering the "last time" to what the boy was referring. "I...I understand," she replied haltingly. "No breathing. Got it."

"Then, you must make your way along the outside of the bathhouse; there is a set of stairs to follow. At their end, you will find the boiler-room." He paused. "With me so far?"

Chihiro swallowed hard. "Yeah."

"You'll have to demand a job of the man who works there. His name is Kamaji." The boy paused thoughtfully. "He very well might recognize you...though even if he doesn't, he'll know exactly who you are once you tell him your name."

As he uttered these words, his expression darkened, and his eyes became stony. "You _must_ remember your name, Chihiro. You _must_. Yubaba will try to take it from you, and you must do everything in your power to keep from forgetting."

He brought his hand to her other shoulder, so that he now had an unbearably tight hold on her. "Do you understand me?"

A small gasp escaped her lips, as his hands clenched into her flesh. "Yes!"

"Are you certain?" His eyes narrowed, his grip becoming painful.

Chihiro winced, inhaling sharply. "You're hurting me."

His hands immediately went slack, and she took the opportunity to wrench herself free. "And yes, I understand, as I have an intelligence level slightly higher than a_ toadstool_, thank you," she said acidly.

The boy look stunned, and took a step back from her. The hardness had gone from his face; he now appeared vulnerable as he studied her.

"I don't understand how you were able to come back, Chihiro," he murmured, and something intense and nameless burned suddenly in his eyes.

"It wasn't entirely my doing," she said softly, averting her gaze.

The boy took a slow, deep breath, but didn't respond. Chihiro continued to stare at her shoes, until, a moment later, he grabbed her hand.

"Are you ready to go back?" he asked, giving Chihiro a long, scrutinizing look. She jerked her head and said nothing, not trusting herself to speak; the seriousness of the situation had begun to sink in.

"I know you'll be all right," he said firmly, his hand tightening around hers.

Chihiro tried to smile, but her heart wasn't in it. "I certainly hope so," she managed to say.

The boy gave her a surprisingly warm smile that reached to his eyes, and began running, an astonishing burst of speed that took Chihiro's breath away as he pulled her with him.

Whipping past expanses of shadowy grass, and the eerily glowing restaurants, Chihiro tried to ignore the wispy black shapes that seemed to crop up everywhere she looked.

Soon enough, the run was over, and Chihiro didn't feel quite as tired as she had before. They halted at the seam where the wooden bridge met the stone walkway. Now that she saw it again, the bridge looked impossibly long, when measured in seconds her lungs could recycle one breath of air.

_It doesn't matter, you'll do all right_, she told herself. _Even he thinks so, and he certainly doesn't strike me as an overwhelmingly positive character. _She glanced over at him, noticing that his jaw was set tightly and his eyes were fixed on the bathhouse, close yet far. _So mysterious..._

Making up her mind, Chihiro tugged on the boy's arm, turning him to face her. His eyes were once again shuttered and blank, but she knew that he was nervous for her, and for some reason, the thought was strengthening.

"You know my name. What's yours?" she asked abruptly, training her gaze on his face.

He wore no expression, but his gaze had the same strange intensity as before.

"My name is Haku," he replied, after a moment of apparent indecision; his voice caught slightly on the name.

"Now, take the deepest breath you possibly can."


	5. Crossing

...i'm beginning to think i'm having TOO much fun with these rewrites...hm.

--

Chihiro hadn't been prepared for the sound of the boy's name to hurt her. But it did. She could sense in his voice that he didn't expect the word to mean anything to her, but there was the smallest note of hope that maybe it would, maybe she would remember. Maybe she would remember _him_.

Chihiro found she couldn't speak to reply; she was afraid she might start to cry again, which would certainly prevent her from making it across the bridge in one breath. Fighting to keep her face unreadable, and dearly hoping to have succeeded, she nodded silently to signal that she was ready.

She took in the greatest amount of air she could, feeling as though she was nearly cracking her ribs in her effort. And they stepped forth, her feet scraping softly against the weathered wooden bridge.

Chihiro gripped Haku's arm more tightly than she'd ever held onto anything in her life; somehow, it distracted her from the slight burn that had already begun in her lungs. She clapped her other hand firmly across her mouth, her fingernails pressing forcibly into her skin in a way that promised bruising and crescent-shaped cuts.

Something brushed past Chihiro's shoulder, and a sharp jolt went through her as she became suddenly aware of the many other bodies making their way to the bathhouse by way of the weather-beaten bridge. Rich spirits brilliantly costumed, with papery masks of black and white. Some like ugly, surreal hags of the forest, with knobbly antlers and leaves interwoven in their earthy dress. One of the hags glanced through Chihiro; fighting the urge to gasp, her hand tightened instinctively about Haku's upper arm, where she absently noticed lean muscle, warm and reassuringly solid beneath his rough tunic.

_They're all moving too slow, I'll never make it, _Chihiro realized helplessly, biting her lip bloodless beneath the quivering hand atop it. Her lungs, that had so recently felt like balloons blown too large, now brought to Chihiro's rapidly hazing mind an image of an accordion folding painfully shut. The breath would rush out of her at any second, her entire chest was caving, collapsing...

Pinpricks of light exploded behind Chihiro's eyes, akin to the tiny diamonds sparkling in the rich black night above her head. Struggling with her own human instincts, a sensation of drowning overcame her. Her nails in Haku's arms must have felt like daggers, but it was only a brief second before this thought was swept out of her head by a surge of darkness.

Chihiro couldn't see her stumbling feet as they met the slick stone path at the end of the bridge. Pitching forward, the all-consuming need to breathe won out, and she released her mouth from the grasp of her trembling hand. Chihiro exhaled in an outward gasp, emptying her lungs so thoroughly that for a brief moment she thought the rest of her insides might follow. She took a breath, air slamming into her lungs, and her dizziness increased a thousand-fold. Dimly aware of Haku's arms steadying her, she fell into the black that had been lapping enticingly at the edges of her consciousness.


	6. Escape

Hooray for tweaking!

--

Chihiro woke slowly to the sensation of a cool, smooth hand against her cheek. It felt somehow so very familiar, but she couldn't quite place it...

_The dream!_ she realized, vaulting frantically upwards; her vision blackened at the edges, having sat up far too quickly. The same soothing hand gently turned her aching head sideways, its force on her chin as gentle as it was firm.

"Wha..what hap-" Chihiro's words strangled in her throat, an anxious lump swelling to block her speech. Haku's hard-edged green eyes met hers.

"It's all right, Chihiro." There was a steely quality to his voice, and it seemed to tether Chihiro back to reality. Blinking her surroundings into abrupt focus, Chihiro slowly looked around. Glancing bemusedly around her, the dim sleepiness weighting her eyelids lessened somewhat, and she noted that she had been brought to a garden of some sort while unconscious. She and Haku were hidden behind a large flowering shrub. To her left, Chihiro could see backlit silhouettes scurrying frenetically about inside of the bathhouse wall.

Returning her eyes to Haku, Chihiro felt a jolt of surprise ripple through her; his gaze was more intense than she had yet seen it.

"They know you're here, Chihiro."

His tone leaden, each word carried a somehow menacing weight.

Chihiro swallowed a gasp, and somehow managed to nod. "What should I do?" she asked hoarsely.

Haku glanced at the dim golden wall behind them, obviously gauging how much time he had before…

"Master Haku! Master Haku, where are you?" screeched a shrill female voice from inside the building.

Haku tore his eyes away from the darkened shapes rushing about behind the screened wall.

"Chihiro, you remember what I told you earlier about getting to the boiler room and speaking with Kamaji?"

Chihiro made a valiant attempt to swallow the enormous lump that seemed to be swelling her throat shut. "Yeah, I remember…"

Haku gave her a piercing look, his mouth caught halfway between a smile and a frown. "Do it."

With that, Haku stood. "I'm coming, I'm coming. Calm down," he said loudly. The people inside stopped their frantic running, and the wall slid open with a bang.

"Master Haku, there you are! You're needed inside, come on!" The panicked male voice did not seem familiar to Chihiro, but all the same it sent a thread of ice through her. Haku stepped over to the doorway, looking coldly separate from the scene, and a stout man pulled him inside.

_Wait a minute… _Chihiro's mouth dropped open as she watched the figure slam the sliding door shut. It _wasn't_ a man. It wasn't human at all. It seemed almost to be an overlarge frog…a thought which Chihiro found privately quite terrifying.

Even so, Chihiro forced herself to focus. _Okay…so I have to go along the outside of the bathhouse…stairs… _Breathing deeply, she attempted to draw together what shreds of her composure remained.

Glancing back at the bathhouse wall to ensure that she proceeded unnoticed, Chihiro darted out from the shelter of her leafy hiding place. Coming at once to a small wooden gate, she noted with dismay that the hinges were rusty and looked quite old. Rather than chance any more noise than she had to, Chihiro carefully climbed over the low fence flanking the side of the little door.

_So far, so good…maybe this won't be so hard after all…_

Chihiro broke into a brisk jog, hurrying as best she could until she reached the outer wall of the bathhouse. Glancing left, her eyes fell on the beginnings of the steep, interminably long staircase, and she inhaled so sharply that she nearly choked on her breath. _No way…you can't be serious. I hafta go down _THOSE_ stairs?_

She inched over to the first wooden step, peering nervously over the side. "Jesus," Chihiro breathed, her fairly average fear of heights kicking into overdrive at the sight of this new danger, her only way out. It seemed the staircase stretched for miles from start to finish, rather ominous watery sounds drifting up through the spaces in the aged wooden framework.

_I have to,_ Chihiro reminded herself, sucking in another deep breath. She closed her eyes for a moment, steeling her resolve. Then, clutching the wobbly handrail with a discouraging sense of impending doom, she eased herself onto the first step.

The stair emitted a pathetic creaking noise, and Chihiro shrieked, quickly bracing herself for the inevitable breaking of the wooden boards. After a fair few minutes of clinging desperately to the surprisingly sturdy railing, no such possibility having even remotely presented itself, Chihiro sighed tremulously and wiped away the sudden slick of moisture that had beaded on her forehead during the brief moment of terror.

_Ugh…and I have _HOW_ many more of these to go?_


	7. Revealed

I regret to acknowledge that filler like this is a necessary evil. Sigh. However…belated Christmas present to my lovely, lovely readers.  kees

-HG-

--

Yubaba was not pleased. The wrinkled skin of her face, lined with cruelty, was crumpled in an expression of extreme annoyance. Thin, brittle lips curled back in a toothy snarl.

"How is this _possible_, Haku?"

She didn't seem to actually expect an answer; the witch quickly paced the lush Oriental carpeting of her sumptuously decorated study, her indigo gown swaying back and forth with her frantic steps.

"That…that _wretch_ of a girl…she _can't_ have come back." Her nose wrinkled in fevered distaste. "Sen." A dark flare in her cold, calculating eyes. "…_Chihiro_."

Haku swallowed hard, his tongue feeling thick against his teeth. _Her damned bird must have caught a glimpse of Chihiro…_Inwardly, he cursed, wishing with a surge of resentment that he could slam a fist into the marble wall at his side, perhaps watch with brutal satisfaction as a crack climbed upwards through the expensive stone, stemming from his hand. _I thought I was so _careful_…_

The frustration simmered in his veins, but, as he was skillfully practiced in doing, Haku hid it well. He kept his face smooth, expressionless, while inside he so longed to turn heel and run, run back and find Chihiro before any harm could come to her, that his legs tingled in anticipation.

"I'll find her," he said coolly, deftly masking his emotions with the standard tone of spiteful detachment. "Don't give yourself any more gray hairs over it."

Yubaba wheeled around to face him, rage seething in the crevices of her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but knowing full well the sort of acid such words bore, Haku turned and left her.

After all, she had no true power over him anymore.

Her incredulous fury was tangible in the air as he strode briskly out of her study, passing through doorway after obnoxiously filigreed doorway. _Time to find Chihiro_, he thought, his jaw firmly set. Her name resounding within his skull brought with it a pointed ache. …_The girl who has no recollection of me whatsoever._

_--_

Chihiro stepped through the threshold, cringing as the heavy steel door closed behind her with a greatly audible clang. Coughing almost immediately as dust swam into her throat, she eyed the wall opposite her with great trepidation; it was glowing scarlet with the light of the fires within the room, and menacing shadows shifted shape before she could even venture a guess at their origins.

Her heart was palpitating, her lungs pulling in heavy breaths to compensate. _I'm never going to accomplish anything standing _hereshe admonished herself a moment later, having inhaled a hearty cloud of soot for her trouble. _Besides,_ she thought as she rounded the corner, steeling herself against what she might find. _Haku trusts him._

But just what exactly the "him" _was_, it was difficult to say. A bespectacled, mustached man sat atop a large podium that gleamed in the firelight; he seemed elderly but rather ordinary, until four impossibly long arms seemed unfold from beneath his torso. Chihiro staggered back a step as one of these incredible appendages soared up and across the room to one of the hundreds of rough-hewn wooden drawers that lined the walls.

Removing with a three-fingered hand what appeared to be a small amount of crackled grayish straw, the strange creature made a sort of "harrumph" noise, one quite common to elderly men, and dropped the dead plants into a grinding tray, as he turned his face toward where Chihiro stood, awkward and out-of-place at the door.

"Well, come in or get out, don't just stand there in the doorway like you don't know what to do with yourself," he grumbled, mustache ruffling with his breath. Chihiro blinked, not having realized that her presence had been noticed.

"Um…my name is…" _Sen. He knew you as Sen,_ a voice in her head reminded. "I'm Sen."

There was a muffled _thud_, as the coarse stone wheel the man had been using to grind his herbs was dropped back into its tray in shock.

"_Sen_?" he whispered, voice clearly betraying his astonishment. Sensing that it was entirely appropriate given his stunned reception, Chihiro dutifully walked toward the large structure upon which the boiler-man was perched.

"It _is_ you, child!" the man exclaimed as she came into the light. His grin was obvious through the sudden decidedly profound curvature of his whiskers. Before Chihiro could take another breath, the lanky, spidery-looking elder was climbing down from his perch and walking bandy-legged towards her.

Chihiro had entered the room fearing a stranger, but she felt a warmth drizzling through her veins now, the sort of feeling one experiences upon encountering an old friend.

_But I'm not here to get re-acquainted with him._

"Sen," he paused several feet from her, as though a particularly serious thought had just crossed his mind. His mustache straightened into a grim line. "What on _earth_ are you _doing_ here?"

_What would you say if I told you that _I_ had no idea either? _"Kamaji…I have a favor to ask," Chihiro began awkwardly. Swallowing against the grit that had steadily built inside her mouth from breathing the sooty air, she shifted her weight slightly from foot to foot.

"I need you to give me a job."


	8. Forgotten

…tweakity…

Haku felt the swelter of the water-boiler before he even stepped through the doorway. Quickly scanning the vast, wood-paneled room for signs of life, he felt relief rinse through him when his eyes fell upon a lanky brunette crouching near the doorway. It wasn't that he doubted that Kamaji would have given her a job; he simply found himself worrying over everything when it came to this girl that had stumbled back into his life so abruptly.

He took a few cautious steps across the hardwood floor, although it was exceedingly unlikely that anyone would hear a mere creak of a floorboard over the roar of the boiler. Maybe it was just that he hadn't seen her in so long, but Haku felt a sudden, irresistible desire just to watch Chihiro for a moment, to see how she acted when she wasn't being accosted by his remoteness, see what her face looked like when it was smiling gently, instead of blank with the effort of remembering his face…

Kamaji was engrossed in grinding a batch of bath salts; they sent a bitter scent into the air as he kneaded them heavily into the basin before him. Haku came to rest against the podium, atop which sat the oblivious boilerman; he was entirely too occupied with grumbling about impatient customers to notice the young man just below him.

Haku slowly took in the sight of Chihiro, stooping in the midst of a swarm of bouncing black sprites. For a split second Haku wondered what the things were, but just as soon remembered: Kamaji customarily placed an enchantment on the copious amounts of soot that tended to accumulate in the boiler-room, making himself a small army of eager helpers. Chihiro seemed to be feeding them, although calling the star-shaped confetti she sprinkled across the ground "food" was a fairly loose comparison. He noticed that she had removed her shoes and socks, letting the soot-balls dance over her bare feet; a shot of warmth bloomed in his chest when he heard her laugh, so like the rare occasions when he had heard her do so as a little girl, and yet different. _She_ was different. It took only a glance to know that.

_Well, enough of this_, Haku thought decisively, stepping out of Kamaji's shadow. It was strange to speak to her, considering her memory of him seemed only to consist of the time since sundown, but it felt stranger to watch her, as though from behind an invisible barrier.

"Chihiro!"

Her head snapped up upon hearing her name, and she smiled when she saw Haku striding towards her. The heat of the boiler-room had stained her cheeks pink, but she looked as though she were perfectly content to tend to the strange soot-creatures. She ran a hand absently through her dark brown hair, suffused with the red glow of the coals, and stirred her foot amongst the puffs like a girl playing in the sand.

"Kamaji gave me a very difficult job, as you can see," Chihiro said dryly, gesturing to her sooty feet.

Haku returned her smile. "Clearly."

He stooped so that their eyes were on one level, and tilted his head in an effort to seem casual, while internally, he had just thought of a brilliant idea.

"Would you like to get something to eat?"

"What have you _done _to this _rice_?"a frustrated female voice barked, the words thundering down the length of the hallway outside of the kitchen. "Do you see how sticky this is? _Unacceptable!_" Chihiro's eyes widened, and she turned to Haku with a quizzical look.

"You want to take me in _there_?"

Haku grimaced. "It's always something with her." Grasping Chihiro's wrist, he made as though to enter the kitchen, but paused just before turning into the doorway.

"Chihiro…let me do the talking, all right? We don't want Yubaba to know you've entered the bathhouse." He took another step, before stopping again. "Actually, it's probably best if you just stay out here."

Chihiro immediately thought of the screaming that had so recently issued from the room they were about to enter. "Fine by me."

Haku dropped her wrist. "I'll be back in a moment. Try to stay out of sight, if anyone comes," he said, glancing furtively up and down the deserted hallway. Luckily, all of the activity in the vicinity seemed to be located solely in the kitchens. Sighing, he turned the corner and disappeared from view.

_Something tells me he's not just getting me some food…_Chihiro thought with certainty. _He mentioned 'her'…who could _that_ be?_

Very little time had passed before Chihiro heard Haku approaching the doorway. Actually, she heard his name being shouted very close to the spot where she stood, so she presumed that Haku was accompanying this volatile individual.

"I _can't_ leave right now, Haku! These toads have made a _mess_ of the rice, I'm running low on sake, and I…I just _can't_!" The woman's tone had grown slightly more harried than the first outburst Chihiro had overheard.

Then came Haku's voice, although Chihiro could not account for what on earth he was talking about. "I promise you, you'll be glad you did."

A loud "_Hmph_" was the only reply, before Haku and a pretty young woman with long, dark brown hair exited the kitchen. Chihiro gave a small gasp; in an instant she knew that she had known this person during her previous sojourn to the Spirit World. The auburn hair, the slender, clever face that looked as though mischief simmered just beneath its surface…The certainty sent a coil of fire up her throat, and yet she couldn't remember the woman's name.

"Do you recognize this girl?" Haku prompted the woman. She flicked her dark eyes absently over Chihiro in a careless fashion that could only have helped register recognition of the most familiar face, and gave Haku a withering look.

"Haku, I hate to be rude, but I don't have time for this." She looked at Chihiro again for a moment, scanning her once more, but there was no flicker of recollection. With an expression equal parts apology and impatience, she shook her head slowly and shrugged. "No, I don't recognize her. Am I dismissed?" she said, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Unexpectedly, Haku laughed at this. Chihiro blinked; she'd somehow not really thought it possible that such a serious individual possessed the _ability_ to laugh. Not only that, but it was an easy, pleasant laugh that made Chihiro feel a sudden mad desire to laugh as well.

"No, I don't really think you'll want to go, once you realize who this is."

Chihiro thought she could feel irritation boiling in the very air surrounding the woman. "Oh _really_?" the stranger retorted, her incredulity clearly audible.

Haku laughed again. "You don't remember?" He gestured to Chihiro's face, making her feel a sudden urge to duck her head and let her hair hide her features from view. "She was a bit shorter back then, though…and…" He walked around Chihiro so that he was standing directly behind her. Unexpectedly, he gently gathered her hair and pulled it back behind her head, holding it like a loose ponytail in his hand.

The woman stared at him as thoroughly as though his skin had just turned a fascinating shade of purple. "What—" She stared appraisingly at Chihiro; several seconds later, an abrupt change came over her thin, fair face: her black eyes grew wide and bright and her jaw hung very suddenly slack.

"_Sen_!" she shrieked, grabbing Chihiro's shoulders as though to make sure she was truly there in front of her. "_Is that really you_!"

Chihiro couldn't help but smile in response; the older girl's enthusiasm was infectious. "Yeah, it's me."

The woman's eyes still burned like embers in her excitement, and she looked expectantly at Chihiro, obviously waiting for her shrill, animated greeting to be reciprocated.

Chihiro turned her head to glance helplessly at Haku, who looked rather pleased with himself. _I don't remember her name!_ She willed him to see the panic in her eyes. _Please, do something!_

Haku stared at her for a moment, before nodding curtly, the pleasure sliding sharply from his face. Letting her hair slide out of his hand, he walked back around Chihiro to stand at the woman's side. He gently touched her shoulder, but it didn't matter; she already appeared to be realizing that something wasn't quite right.

"Sen…" she began with a nervous laugh, as though this incident was a silly misunderstanding they would soon laugh over together. "Sen, don't tell me you don't remember me!" The lights in her eyes were flickering and dying, and the amazement of a moment before was wearing visibly thin in her long face. Her hands were sliding slowly off of Chihiro's slim shoulders.

Chihiro closed her eyes, willing her mind to come up with the woman's name. _Please, just let me remember her name_…

Nothing came. She opened her eyes again a moment later, and her heart wrenched at the sight of the woman's hopeful expression.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice barely scraping past a sudden lump in her throat. This was the second person she'd hurt in as many hours, simply because her memory was so terribly dim.

The woman cleared her throat, plainly trying to compose herself. "Okay. Well. I'm Lin." She extended a hand towards Chihiro, who tried very hard to prevent herself from shedding the tears that welled hotly in her eyes; while the instantaneous switch from old friend to businesslike acquaintance was terribly disheartening, crying over it would surely not help matters.

"Nice to meet you, Lin," Chihiro said as steadily as she could manage, grasping the proffered hand with a firmness that greatly belied the shakiness that Lin could not see; she felt as though her insides were turned to grains of sand, the sort which simply slides into nothing when one attempts to walk across…

Haku gently grabbed her by the arm, surprising her. His warm grasp was strengthening, and Chihiro turned to him feeling slightly less dejected.

"Lin, would you be able to sneak her a little bit of food? I imagine she's probably quite hungry." His lips quirked in an encouraging sort of way as he glanced at Chihiro. "It's been a long day."


	9. Remembering

Nice, long chapter…I started working on this one and sort of just kept going and going, until I found a good place to hang it right off of a cliff…

- - - -

"You can stay in here with me," Lin explained curtly, her tone brusque and shallow, as though still glossing over the hurt of being forgotten. She gestured to a small, sparse room, where two cots were unfurled over what looked like a very old, but quite clean expanse of hardwood paneling.

Chihiro really could not have been less bothered by the near-emptiness of the room itself; the view from the rather generous porch was fantastic. A seemingly endless expanse of shimmering, rain-swelled water met the soft, smoky-blue horizon that heralded the approaching dawn. Filmy, misty clouds swirled in painted streaks above the gently rippled surface. She turned to Lin, smiling, silently begging the older girl to smile back.

Lin's narrow, rosy mouth twitched, and her eyes seemed to soften slightly. It was a start.

"You wouldn't normally have the luxury of sharing a room with only one other person, as you…well, as you _don't_ remember, I suppose…" Lin gave a brittle laugh, sending another pang of guilt sharply through Chihiro's chest. How horrible, to make someone with whom she must have been very close feel so uncomfortable around her…and even more horrible still, to be unable to help it.

"But, only a couple months after you left, they promoted me." She seemed to allow herself a little pride at this, her hands going smoothly to her hips and her height seeming to increase by an inch. "I supervise the kitchen, now, which is a far sight better than scrubbing out the baths." She rolled her eyes. "Remember when we had to do the big tub?"

_"This is _clearly_ harassment!" Lin snarled, throwing a sopping, filthy rag furiously to the ground. _

"I-I think I do, actually," Chihiro managed to say, feeling suddenly rather faint. Her skin was uncomfortably warm, and she could feel the blood pound roughly through her temples, as though to say "Don't get used to this remembering-things bit." But it didn't matter. The scene had jumped to the front of her mind, as vivid as though she was seeing it play out right before her eyes.

Lin blinked at her for a moment, before she smiled very carefully, as though not daring to hope for more than one episode of this nature. "Really?"

Nodding, Chihiro took several unbalanced steps backward, until the narrow edge of the door pressed along her spine. She relaxed against the surrogate backbone, grateful that something was there to support her. It was causing an unnerving amount of discomfort to try and recall more of the scene that had flashed so briefly and tantalizingly through her mind. But maybe it was like digging a hole in the earth…maybe the first layer would be the hardest to break through, and it would all become easier if she just kept on going…

She could see Lin out of the corner of her eye; the older girl was watching her with mingled concern and eagerness. _I'm not letting her down again_, Chihiro thought, gritting her teeth. _Just one more thing…remember…_

Her eyelids fluttered closed, and through a throbbing haze, she saw an immense, muddy something fall into an enormous basin of steaming, greenish water. A salty, rotten scent bit at her nostrils, the water was flushing over her knobby ankles, her bird-legs, the lower half she hadn't possessed in five years…

"The River Spirit!" she gasped, more than spoke, her breath breaking forth from between her lips, her insides frenzied and feeling near collapse.

_I remember…he gave me medicine_, she realized faintly, a shiver scuttling through her. _But what was it for? I had to have used it! _Her skin prickled with a sort of feverish heat that left her feeling almost cold, and she felt suddenly lightheaded, her temples throbbing angrily, so that she felt gravity slipping away…

"I think that's enough for tonight, Sen," Lin said hastily, rushing forward. Chihiro felt the other girl's arms firm against her ribs, and thought vaguely that she must have started to fall sideways.

"Come on, you sit down here, and I'll get you some clothes to sleep in." Lin helped Chihiro stumble awkwardly over to a cot, and lowered her gently to the ground. The mattress was thin, but to Chihiro, in her acute exhaustion, it might have been an enormous pillow. She sank gratefully against the padding, and was dimly aware of Lin rustling through what sounded like fabric before the warm, welcome veil of sleep lidded her eyes.

- - - -

Chihiro's dreamless sleep broke open at the stabbing intrusion of morning light. She groaned and tried feebly to grasp at the last threads of unconsciousness that lingered, but to no avail. It seemed she would need more than one night in the Spirit World to adjust to this sleep pattern, so much the polar opposite of her own.

Blinking against the brightness suffusing the room, Chihiro looked down at herself bemusedly. She had fallen asleep in the clothes she had worn the day before, and although she vaguely remembered collapsing atop a made-up cot, it seemed someone had tossed a quilt over her while she slept.

_Lin_, she thought, a small smile quirking her lips. A glance to her right showed that the older girl was huddled under a similar quilt on the cot next to her, the heavy breathing of deep sleep stirring a few loose strands of her hair. Lin was obviously having no trouble whatsoever sleeping inside a patch of sunlight.

_Well, I'll leave her to it, I guess_. Yawning, Chihiro drew herself up to a sitting position, her limbs feeling no lighter than lead in her drowsiness. Throwing off the flowered blanket, Chihiro managed to bring herself, however unsteadily, to her feet. Breathing in a bit of the crisp morning air that streamed in from outside, she trudged out onto the wooden terrace.

The sun was not yet noon-high in the smooth, cloudless dome of blue above her head, and it lent a spectacular sheen to the water that stretched so far off into the distance. Taking in all she could of her surroundings, Chihiro looked off to the left, noticing an area studded with an array of brilliant colors that must have been flowers, and with an unassuming brownish building at the center of the mix. A building that looked oddly familiar.

Her cheeks were beginning to feel scorched beneath the sunlight as she stared at that simple, pretty little spot across a narrower part of the water. At least, she assumed it was the sunlight that was creating the heat that blanketed her face and rinsed beneath her skin. And why would it be anything else? Surely she wasn't on her way to remembering something else?

She turned very quickly from the innocuous sight, and made her way carefully across the room. Spotting the uniform that Lin had laid out for her, Chihiro thought it would be a good idea to change into something that would blend into the general bathhouse staff a little more easily than jeans.

_And then, maybe I'll be able to find Haku_, she thought hopefully, tugging on the billowing, salmon-colored pants that were as ugly as she could just, very faintly, recall.

- - - -

Haku had not slept well. In fact, he had decided, upon waking and feeling as though his brain was shrinking inside of his skull, that he felt as though he'd barely managed to sleep at all. He'd collapsed in a small pantry leading off from the kitchen once he'd seen to it that Chihiro had someplace safe to sleep. He hadn't felt quite enough peace of mind with regards to the girl's situation to permit himself to go all the way up to his own room on Yubaba's floor. He felt an unwavering need to be reasonably close to where Chihiro was staying, a need that he had no intention of questioning.

But he was _groggy_. He managed to laboriously pull himself up off of the ground, stifling a groan; he discerned that sleeping on an uncovered wooden floor did nothing agreeable to one's muscles.

Standing brought a rather unwelcome bout of dizziness, but Haku no less than _demanded_ his body to stop behaving as though he'd consumed large amounts of sake the night before. It was a certainty that he had done no such thing, and the less than pleasant symptoms he was experiencing were no doubt the simple aftereffects of too little sleep, coupled with very little food, and a healthy dose of worrying about Chihiro.

He grabbed a cupful of water on his way out of the kitchen, gratefully moistening his parched throat. As soon as he exited the room, however, he was confronted with a sight so startling that, in the process of taking another sip of water, he missed his mouth entirely and thoroughly soaked his shoulder.

It was Chihiro, tiptoeing down the hallway, biting her lip and glancing around nervously. But what gave Haku such a start was the loose servant's uniform draped over the girl's slim frame. For a scant few seconds, Haku almost thought that he had gone back in time. But then he noted the height of her, the fact that, guilty as he felt for noticing, the cloth clung to her in a very different way than it had five years ago, and it was like altered time, the same and different all at once; certainly, the momentary confusion was capable of strengthening the throbbing in his head.

"_Haku!_" she gasped, becoming aware of his presence. She straightened up at once from the slinking posture she'd been employing, and her cheeks took on the faintest blush. At least, he thought they did, but perhaps it was only a reflection of the vivid pink shirt against her skin.

"I-I was hoping I'd…find…" Her voice trailed off, and her brow creased. She took a cautious step forward. _What is she doing?_ he wondered bemusedly, feeling the vaguest sense of panic as she came closer. She stopped a few paces from him, her eyes narrowed and bright.

"You look like death warmed over."

Haku wasn't entirely familiar with this expression, but it was clear that Chihiro was paying him no compliment. Her tone of voice, coupled with the edge of concern softening her features, made it quite obvious what she meant.

"I didn't sleep very well," he conceded, absently fingering the slightly puffy areas beneath his eyes. "You worry me." A beat later, he wished he could swallow that last sentence, instead of leaving it hanging between them, thickening and heating the air…

Chihiro colored, but swallowed determinedly. "Are you all right, Haku? You look flushed."

_Do I?_ he thought in surprise. So the warming sensation had not been from the atmosphere; it had been his discomfort painting his face.

"So do you," he countered, pretending not to notice as her blush grew yet more pronounced. He smiled slightly at this. "Perhaps we would both benefit from a cold drink?"

With that, Chihiro followed him wordlessly into the kitchen, her face still smoldering. Haku filled a cup to the brim with icy water and handed it to her, before taking another drink for himself.

"Are you hungry?" he asked abruptly a few moments later, breaking into the awkward silence that had blanketed them as they drank.

"Uh…yeah, I am," Chihiro said quietly. She was staring into her cup, cradling it in her hands and appearing, for all intents and purposes, to be avoiding his eyes.

"I'll find you something." With no effort at all, his voice became brisk once again. Why she'd so suddenly withdrawn, he didn't dare guess, but he hoped the change wasn't permanent.

- - - -

_You idiot_, Chihiro fumed inwardly. She was quite furious with herself for that embarrassing display. It was, of course, understandable to be rather nervous around a young man she'd just met…_But, this thing with Haku is different,_ she noted silently, watching him rifle through a nearby cupboard for something to eat. _I knew him before…and regardless of what I do or do not remember…_ She sighed. She wouldn't let herself be intimidated by the unknown.

_Besides,_ _he was definitely blushing back there,_ she thought, feeling slightly bolstered The notion was a comforting one, that someone who made her feel as strange as he did still had the very human capacity to turn pink.

"Here, this should still be good," he said, startling her out of her reverie by appearing suddenly at her side. A large rice ball nearly filled his cupped hands, and she took it gladly from him.

The weight and scent of the food in her hand was familiar and strange, at the same time. For some reason, it made her think of her own name. _Chihiro, Chihiro, my name is Chihiro…_

"You gave me one of these before," she blurted, looking up at him and feeling shaken. _He did, I'm sure of it_.

Haku's eyes were wide, but they were the only sign of his apparent amazement; there was something searching in them that made Chihiro's skin grow warm.

"I did…several, in fact." He looked as though he wanted to say more, but wasn't sure whether he should. Chihiro held his probing gaze, taking step after step toward him, until there was no more than a foot between them.

"Tell me," she said quietly, unable to look away from his eyes, behind which loomed steely-green walls. She didn't want to break eye contact until she'd reduced those walls to rubble. "I started to remember some things last night…it might help me."

She detected a flicker of panic, skittering across the smooth, pale terrain of his face. The lips twitched, so slight a movement that she almost thought she had imagined it. But no, she hadn't. There was definite anxiety in those closed-off eyes, the walls were beginning to wear away in spots…

She laid her hands gently on his chest, and very distinctly felt him take in a quick breath. He felt firm, strong beneath her touch, his warmth discernible through the rough cloth tunic he wore.

"Please, Haku," she breathed, aware of her pulse quickening, unsure whether the cause was her nearness to him or the tantalizing possibility of remembering everything.

His expression had gone from faintly alarmed to thoroughly unreadable. His hands came up and softly grasped hers. Chihiro was so surprised at the sweetness of this gesture that it took a moment for it to register that Haku had, in essence, prized her off of him. He let go of her quickly, and seemed to fight the urge to take a step backward.

"All right."


	10. Onslaught

Might things actually begin to progress in this chapter?

Methinks they might.

This sucker's been a long time coming, so my apologies; research paper due, and all that jazz.

Enjoy!

-hg-

--

Haku had brought her into a maze of flowers that, judging by her expression, was sharply familiar. The sun fell searing and bright on the petals, but the grass was cool beneath them where they sat, and, coupled with the light breeze that brushed through it, the setting was pleasant.

"You were just a child," Haku began abruptly, resting his hands on the knees of his long legs. "I wasn't much older, but I needed to protect you nonetheless." He grimaced slightly; more words he hadn't meant to say. He tightened his mouth when he spoke again, as though making it more difficult to speak at all would help him censor himself.

"Too young to be left alone. Your parents were foolish."

Chihiro made a sharp noise; Haku glanced over at her, only to meet hard, darkened eyes and a mouth like a stone line.

"My parents were _hungry_. It's not like they _intended_ to get turned into pigs," she snapped, folding her arms rigidly across her chest.

--

It took a little over a second for the shockwave to hit Chihiro. She had just produced her irritated response from a memory of her two parents shoving food into their mouths with reckless abandon. Her jaw went slack, and a sudden flush burst through her face like flame.

"I just…they…didn't they…" The pain was so great that Chihiro could scarcely string two words together. She could feel her dam cracking, memory leaking in, acid rinsing through her brain. Dizziness was clawing inside her skull, and she felt a helpless swelling inside her throat, forcing her mouth open, forcing foreign words to pour out…

"They were pigs, so I ran away, but there was a river and I was see-through, but Haku found me and he made me eat a red pill, he ran so fast and I wasn't supposed to breathe and the frog-" The words wouldn't stop; they tore through her chest and she spat them out, barely coherent, feeling like a babbling child.

She could scarcely feel her skin, noticing only vaguely when Haku's hands clasped her arms near her shoulders, firm as rocks to stem her tide.

--

"Kamaji wouldn't give me a job and Lin took me to Yubaba, and there were HEADS, and a giant baby and I smelled like human, Haku wouldn't talk to me, Master Haku-"

Haku's grip on her tightened convulsively, heat spiking viciously through his chest. He _had_ ignored her entirely the first night she'd been there, treating her as an underling and nothing more, showing no compassion to the small, stricken face. He didn't want to consider how alone she must have felt at that moment, when her savior had coldly distanced himself from her.

"I forgot my name, Haku helped me remember, he gave me rice and I let No-Face in, he ate food and people, too, and Haku got badly hurt, he bled on my hands-" Thick streams of tears were coursing continuously down her cheeks now, soaking the neck of her shirt. He could feel her skin through her clothes, burning to the touch. She was feverish, nearly hysterical…what would happen when the memories halted? When she broke the enchantment that had held them captive for five years?

"Zenibaa's seal, and I stepped on the slug…and the train was all shadows…and…" Her breath was shallow and quick, the tears slowing to a steady drip. "Haku came, and I gave him back his name…and we were falling…" Her eyes, which had taken on a glazed appearance, focused very suddenly on Haku, recognition flickering through their depths.

He thought she whispered his name before she fell into him, but he couldn't be entirely sure that it wasn't just the sound of the breeze moving through the flowers. He was paying much more attention to the thin, hot arms that encircled his neck, the damp face that pressed against his chest.

He wound his arms awkwardly around Chihiro, unsure and more than a little unnerved by the trembling girl curled against him. He supposed it was down to him to comfort her, to help her recover from the onslaught of blockaded memories she'd just endured.

"My parents were okay," she murmured shakily into his tunic, her breath warming a spot in the cloth. She pulled away from him, looking upwards with wet brown eyes. "You told me we'd meet again," she said, very softly. "You promised."

Haku felt the most curious ache start within his chest. He remembered that. Chihiro, happy and pink-cheeked, grinning, waving good-bye…he'd known that he would see her again, told her as much, but still it had stung. She'd been all skinny legs and surprises, and she'd freed him from Yubaba. He would be forever indebted to her, and she would be forever in his mind.

But now, here she was again, fewer straight lines to her and more behind her eyes, watching him with something like interest, making him feel simply strange and oddly wonderful, all at once…

"I did," he managed haltingly, unable to look away, acutely aware of her arms still around his neck, small area of warm bare skin against his own. His thoughts were becoming shorter, more disconnected, increasingly urgent and irresistible. _Pull her closer. Close your eyes. Lean forward._ He didn't move, didn't obey, but his heart was starting to race; he could feel his blood pumping faster…_Stop thinking. Kiss her. Now._

--

Haku looked strange. Chihiro felt his arms tighten across her back as she peered into his eyes, which appeared to have darkened the slightest bit, so as to become unnervingly cryptic. It was only when she noticed his breath stirring stray hairs about her face that it struck her how incredibly close they were to one another. If she shifted just a slight few inches forward, her chest would press against his…The very thought sent guilty heat rinsing through her, faster even than her rapid pulse.

"Haku," she breathed, the air scarcely moving past lips that suddenly felt clumsy and thick. Her eyes were drawn to his, held fast, probing uselessly into the unreadable green depths.

His arms were sliding against her back, pulling her where she'd needed little invitation to go. The contact she'd flushed over a moment ago happened very suddenly and sent a flood of electric warmth careening wildly through her, even greater than its predecessor.

The breath that had whispered through her hair was now fanning gently across her face, breezing across her lips. Chihiro's hands found Haku's shoulders, grasped them tightly, used them as anchors to close what little gap remained.

Her eyes were closed, and somehow she knew his were as well; she could feel the gentle heat of his lips coming to meet hers…but something stopped her.

Her tired, flooded mind had begun to spin and whirl, pushing images behind her closed eyes. Her fingers curled into the fabric at Haku's shoulders, urgent and clawing. _No more, I'm finished with that, hasn't it been enough for one day_? she thought desperately. Colors were swimming against the insides of her eyelids, dark and cold. She'd had a dream, hadn't she, a dream that took place not ten meters from where she was now. That her parents were eaten, or they forgot her…

"They wouldn't take the medicine," she whispered, her words ghosting across Haku's lips, not daring to complete the kiss, almost afraid that the bitter chill that began to creep through her veins would somehow spill into him, too. It was as though the worst memories had sunk to the bottom of her mind, and now they were the last to come to light, dregs of the past that threatened to start her crying again.

She could only press her face against Haku's chest again, becoming colder as the remembered aches and fears coated the inside of her head like black decay. At least Haku's arms were still around her, steadying her, keeping her from falling back.

"Chihiro, what is it?" He sounded worried, but his voice was vague to Chihiro, only air, her name floating invisible against her hair. She could only sense Haku injured, Haku thrashing around the boiler-room, slinging his blood against the walls. Haku putting that terrible scent in the air, that metallic tang that hung at the back of her throat, sickening her. She remembered shoving the ball of medicine into his mouth, ignoring the slavering red dripping from his teeth, hoping more than anything that he would only swallow it…

"I thought you were going to die," she mumbled against him, her hands sliding down from his shoulders so she could encircle his waist. "I'd never seen that much blood before."

Haku's arms tightened around her; no doubt he clearly recalled the same event. "It's all right." His voice was the precise kind of blank that said he was actually feeling much more. "You did well."

"It was a long time before I knew you'd survived." She remembered riding that dark, frightening train, only the worry of missing her stop keeping her from succumbing to panic, keeping her mind from bringing up the last image she might ever have of Haku, an unconscious boy on the ground, his eyes closed, perhaps forever.

"I came to you as soon as I could," Haku replied quietly, and two tears leaked from Chihiro's eyes, because she remembered that, as well. She remembered running to him, hugging him around his neck, his silver fur shining like the fabric of a star, and how she'd known, in that moment, that Haku would never leave her again.

The sheer brightness of that memory chased away what spectres remained, let her catch her breath enough to pull her face away from the comforting warmth of Haku's chest.

"You did," she murmured, smiling slightly, looking up in time to see the worry melt away from his features. Before Chihiro could draw another breath, Haku had gently met her lips with his own.


	11. Breaking

I know, it's been a loong time:) Hope you all haven't given up on me!

less-than-3, hg

--

Haku was by no means lazy. He took no pleasure whatsoever in shirking his duties; therefore, he performed them without fail. For years, he was given one day of freedom per week, to rest, drink, or generally act as he saw fit. And each week, he would dread that freedom for the preceding six days.

It wasn't that he greatly enjoyed the activities that his job entailed: greeting guests, barking at servants, and performing any task that Yubaba's black little heart desired; he simply didn't know what to do with himself on his days off. He had no real companions at the bathhouse; as Yubaba's favorite henchman, he earned only the contempt and fear of the other servants. And he knew they were right to feel so about him; if they had spoken to him a single word of dissent or disrespect for Yubaba, he would've reported it immediately.

In fact, on one occasion, a frog had let slip a mild curse when informed of new orders from the top. Haku had, of course, told the witch of this insolence, and by the time the bathhouse opened for business that night, the offending servant had already been turned into a pig and served to customers on a bed of lettuce.

So he slept. He slept for twenty-four hours straight, once a week. He was always so tired, and life was little more than a waking dream as it was. Right before the customers came on Sunday night, Haku would retreat to his private quarters, burrow into his blankets, and be lost to the world until business began once more on Monday.

It felt like a half-life.

When Chihiro returned his name to him, Haku told Yubaba that things were going to change. Besides making it inescapably clear that he could leave whenever he wanted, and would do so if she so much as looked at him the wrong way, he requested two things: that she refrain from arbitrarily transforming servants and humans into food, and that he be paid for seven days of work per week.

Yubaba's eyes had grown very big at the latter request, and she bared her teeth, a prelude to a vehement refusal. Before she could say a word, he informed her that yes, this request did mean that he would be forfeiting his weekly day of rest. This statement, of course, brought about a rapid change in Yubaba's appearance. Smiling toothily, she firmly shook his hand, agreeing to his terms.

But now that he _had_ a companion, a friend, he grudgingly wished that he hadn't been quite so rash in giving away twenty-four hours of freedom per week.

As he absently watched a row of servant girls slide rags cleanly across the already gleaming floor, his thoughts strayed to a brilliant tangle of flowers, feeling Chihiro's warm arms around his neck once more, a phantom sensation of her hair brushing softly against his fingertips.

"Master Haku?"

A black-haired girl, a toadish little thing, had appeared before him, dark eyes avoiding his.

"I-I've hurt my foot."

It appeared she certainly had. The largest toe of her right foot was already purple, the nail edged in three neat lines of blood.

Perhaps it was her very slight resemblance to a younger Chihiro, or maybe the quaver in her voice; something about the girl snapped Haku smartly awake, the flowers fading from his mind.

"I slipped when I was washing the floor, and my foot hit the wall," she hastened to explain, both anxious and embarrassed.

Haku placed a hand gently on her shoulder. "It's all right." He peered down at the injury. "Come, we'll bandage that up for you."

He placed a hand on the small of her back and led her from the room, pausing only to quietly ask a nearby girl to oversee the others during his brief absence.

Moments later, he was kneeling before the small child in a cupboard, carefully wrapping a damp strip of cloth around the girl's first two toes. "You may have broken your largest toe, so I'm just using the second to support it," he informed her, smiling gently. He hoped she hadn't broken the toe, as he knew precisely how painful the experience could be.

The girl nodded, watching him almost unblinkingly. After a few seconds, she tilted her head and appraised him with something like curiosity.

"Master Haku…I don't think I've ever seen you smile before."

Haku's eyes snapped up to meet the girl's coal-black gaze. The statement was simple, childlike; she intended him no disrespect. Yet he found that the innocent observation was something of a painful truth. How many years had he lost under Yubaba's spell, nameless and tainted, scarcely knowing where Yubaba stopped and he began? Emotions had been blurry, vague things at the edges of his consciousness. Smiles were precious, the inclination behind them rare as diamonds.

In fact, he realized, the only times he'd smiled in recent memory had been somehow connected with Chihiro.

"You're right," Haku responded softly, tying a knot in the bandage to keep it snug against her foot. He gave the top of her toes a gentle tap and stood.

The girl hopped off of the stool and grinned suddenly, mischievously. "Better not smile _too_ much. Yubaba might think you're up to something."

She quite obviously meant the comment in jest, but regardless, it sent a flush of cold through Haku's veins. His chest tightened, and he motioned wordlessly for the girl to go back to work, no longer smiling.

Seeing his suddenly grim expression, the girl looked sadly at him for a split second, before turning and limping back to the others.

Haku sat down heavily on the recently vacated stool, his jaw clenched. The girl had been unflinchingly, innocently accurate; if he kept walking around the bathhouse with his most private thoughts painted across his face, Yubaba would no doubt notice. She'd never known him to smile.

_You're a fool_, Haku told himself, gritting his teeth. _It never should have happened in the first place_.

What had he been thinking? Guilty heat crept through his skin; he could feel the kiss once more. It had been almost painfully brief, a soft, swift meeting of lips that was both tantalizing and frustrating. He _hadn't_ been thinking, and that was the problem. He'd let himself get carried away by the sunlight, and the scent of flowers, and Chihiro's closeness.

He swallowed hard, chasing away the pleasant memory. If Yubaba found out about the feelings between the two of them, nothing good could come of it; it wouldn't be at all unexpected for her to find a way to exploit the relationship.

She would know that Haku had lied to her, had found Chihiro as she'd asked but instead of turning her in, _sheltered_ her. Perhaps she would hurt Chihiro to punish him. Or maybe she would use _him _to hurt Chihiro…force her to give up her name once again, stay forever, work until she breathed no more…A brilliant, calculating mind such as Yubaba's could no doubt think of a thousand ways to punish either of them.

Haku stood, kicked the stool back to its place in the corner, and exited the closet, his stride stiff and measured. He inclined his head as he passed a guest, but he could no longer muster a polite curving of his lips. Not when he had just realized that what had happened in the garden could never happen again.

He would not abide Yubaba using his emotions against Chihiro and himself, not when he had only had a few short years of actually _feeling_ things. It would be worse to have his heart dulled after knowing its power than if he had never been set free in the first place.

He _could_ tell Chihiro of his fears, tell her why he could never again embrace her or kiss her. He could picture the scene; he would gently clasp her hands in his, and his voice would be low and not entirely steady. Chihiro's eyes would grow to look something like wet stars, and she would walk away before the tears fell.

He could tell her, but it wouldn't matter. Because he knew, without a doubt, that Chihiro would not understand.

--

The boiler-room was quiet and cool, this early in the day. Chihiro, with a large basket of herbs balanced against her hip, was restocking some of the wooden drawers that held Kamaji's ingredients, thankful for the simplicity of her current task.

She was finding it exceedingly difficult to concentrate on anything, save reliving her morning in the garden. She was still somewhat shaken, remembering the loss of control, the words spilling out of her like sickness. And was it all an illusion, in the end? Did she _really_ remember, or were there still gaping holes that she couldn't sense?

And Haku…imagining him in her mind, she felt her face grow warm. She could distinctly recall the softness of his lips on hers, although the contact had been brief. It really wouldn't do to dwell on it, though, would it? She'd ended it and simply leaned against him for several moments, before he suggested going back to the bathhouse.

"_Lin must be awake by now,"_ he had said. _"She'll be wondering where you are._"

Chihiro grabbed too large a handful of worm salts, several crystals shoving themselves beneath her nails. She winced and dropped them quickly into the drawer, rubbing her hand against her pants to dislodge any stragglers.

_He's afraid of you, isn't he_?

It wasn't Sen, she didn't think, just an unpleasant black wisp at the back of her mind, with a voice like hot iron. Chihiro gritted her teeth and slammed the drawer smartly shut, with force that stung the heel of her hand.

_Of course he isn't _afraid_ of me. He knows me, and he knows things that are plenty worse than me. _Chihiro shoved a handful of dried lemongrass into the next drawer; when she withdrew her hand, she noticed that bits of the herb clung to her palm, which was suddenly damp.

_Not that kind of fear._

It was self-doubt, she was certain now, and so she ignored the voice and its dark, curling edges. _Haku will be here soon, and you'll see_, she thought firmly, warmth chasing through her at the thought.

She reached into the basket once more, absently scraping her fingertips across its bare interior. Surprised, she peered into the bin, noting that only a thin layer of debris remained inside. _Guess it's time for a refill_, she thought, sighing and turning towards Kamaji. But it was not Kamaji who met her eyes.

Haku was standing there, eyes startled, as though he'd been watching her without expecting her to turn around just yet. There were things both hot and cold in his gaze, and he sharpened the line of his mouth as he strode over to her.

--

This was going to be difficult. He had known it would be, but in that moment, he wondered for a moment if he was truly capable of turning from her.

"Come," he said briskly, his voice carefully neutral from years of practice. "I'm taking you to Yubaba."

Chihiro looked stricken for a moment; her eyes were brilliant as they probed his face, her mouth half-open in a way that invited his own to meet it.

"Wha-" her voice failed her, softening away to nothing. She swallowed and tried again. "Why?"

_Because if she knows you're here, she'll be less inclined to punish you than if she'd found you on her own,_ Haku thought, turning from her, his jaw tightly clenched. "Follow me."

She fell silent, and as he moved several paces away from her, he heard her light footsteps fall after his.

They went through the bathhouse this way, to the elevator, not a word passing between them. She stepped inside while he held the door open for her, and when he made the mistake of meeting her gaze, the wetness shining there sent an unwelcome jolt of guilt through his bones.

The door slid smoothly closed, and Haku pulled the lever that would take them to the top floor. He could hear Chihiro breathing, and he thought he could almost smell her unshed tears on the too-silent air.

"Haku…" She was suddenly standing in front of him, her face so imploring, and yet at the same time there was a spark of anger giving blood to her cheeks.

"Stop," he said, his voice issuing from somewhere low in his throat, a new octave borne of fear. _She wouldn't understand_, he reminded himself, trying to ignore memories of brushing her off in this very same elevator several years ago.

She took a step closer, and another, never loosing her gaze from his, until she was nearly pressed against him, and the natural warmth of her skin was filtering through her clothing to his.

"Step back," he ordered, but his voice broke as she laid a hand across his heart. He could see her trying to understand, could almost hear the thoughts crackling through her brain, but at the same time he wanted to forget this thing that she could not know, and close the minute distance between them.

He grabbed her wrist, more firmly than he meant to, and held it away from his chest, trying to ignore the sickening guilt that twisted in his gut.

"Something's wrong," she said, and her voice held tears lit with anger. He dropped her hand, and the doors slid open behind her.

"Something's wrong," she repeated, more loudly this time. Her eyes were suddenly full of that fire; smoky, sooty, furious.

"Get off of the elevator," he said sharply. She didn't move, only stared at him with that sparking, burning look.

"_Move_!" he snapped, feeling his dragon at the base of his voice, lending it a feral power. Chihiro gasped, looking as startled as if he'd struck her. She wheeled around and walked quickly off the elevator, away from him, her shoulders tight and her gait measured.

"Chihiro…" he said softly, immediately regretting his outburst. She didn't turn, kept walking, and her voice was hot and steady when she threw it over her shoulder.

"I thought we had to see Yubaba, _Master_ Haku."


	12. Servitude

It's certainly been awhile. Long chapter ahead, folks, so grab a cola if you wish. :) Reviews are love.

less-than-three, hg

--

Chihiro knocked loudly and firmly on the outermost door of Yubaba's apartments, her knuckles growing warm from striking the lacquered wood.

"Learned how to properly seek entry, have we?"

It took Chihiro several seconds to locate the source of the voice; it was the brass doorknocker, a grotesque likeness of Yubaba's face, sneering and lustrous.

"Yes, it appears I have," Chihiro snapped; her blood was still at a full boil from her argument with Haku, and she found she was not quite in the mood for Yubaba's games.

"Still a brat, I see," the wizened metal face responded, scowling, and the door swung open.

The rooms beyond were dim and cold, and this time, no invisible hand drew her to the correct doorway. She remembered this: Yubaba's palatial living quarters, smelling of things both rich and dark, magic sparking and burning along her skin. But which way to go?

"Turn right." She'd almost forgotten that Haku was still behind her; but now, hearing his voice smoldering at her ears made her instantly warm, her anger returning to crowd the room. Wordlessly, she followed his direction, resenting the fact that she couldn't quite recall the proper route to Yubaba's office unassisted.

"Left here," he said as they drew even with one of many gold-edged doorways. His voice was so bland and emotionless that Chihiro was almost jealous; if she tried to speak to him right now, she knew without a doubt that her words would carry a tangible heat.

The instant she entered the room, Chihiro was hit with a surge of memory so powerful that she had to gulp back a shout. Everything was there, everything came back; suddenly she was so frightened that her shoulders shook, icy fingers danced up her spine. She felt ten years old again, and she could see the witch smile to herself without even looking up from her desk.

"I see you've finally brought me what I asked," Yubaba said in the brassy voice Chihiro had heard in nightmares, nicotine staining her words. Chihiro gulped again, and it felt as though she'd swallowed snowmelt, a dripping, unnatural cold; she exhaled sharply, half expecting to be able to see her breath swirl away from her face.

"Well, Haku, what shall we do with our guest?"

--

Haku swallowed hard before responding to Yubaba's very leading query. If he made a suggestion too simple or pleasant, she would do her worst. But if he suggested something more to her taste…inwardly, he shuddered. She would gladly use his suggestion; perhaps compound it, as well.

"That is for you to decide." He inclined his head slightly as he spoke, figuring that showing undue respect was worlds safer than treating her as he would like.

"Ah." She lit a cigarette with her fingertip, and relished the first heavy puff of smoke, before breathing it out to cloud the air. Then she laughed, a deep, throaty cackle, thick with amusement.

"Look at her, Haku, she's shaking." She gestured over Haku's shoulder with the glowing tip of her cigarette. Another smoky laugh.

He couldn't look. He wouldn't look. She wanted to see his concern, wanted to see his eyes soften at the sight of Chihiro shivering, and he wasn't going to play along.

"Perhaps if you weren't enchanting me, I could _stop_." The warm, sharp force of Chihiro's voice was a shock against Haku's ears. "It isn't very sporting to give me hypothermia just to see me appear submissive."

Yubaba's mouth dropped open, the cigarette extinguishing itself as though blown out. Several hairs drooped from her neatly coiffed bun, as though of their own minds. She cleared her throat, and, a beat later she'd regained herself, her lips hardened into a razor-thin line.

"Fair enough." Looking as though she'd swallowed something particularly unpleasant, the witch threw down her ashy cigarette and snapped her fingers. The very air in the room felt suddenly warmer, and Haku thought he heard Chihiro let out a soft sigh behind him.

He was just debating with himself, whether he should risk a quick glance behind, when Chihiro came forward. She didn't look at him; she stayed several paces directly to his left, her eyes focused straight ahead and glittering like melting onyx.

"I'd like you to give me a job," Chihiro said, her voice hard and clear. She stood as straight as could be, no longer shaking. Her hands were not clenched or white, but resting gently on the seams of her pants.

All in all, she was doing a brilliant job of appearing unafraid. However, Haku could smell her fear on the air, a faint but voluptuous scent of sweet burning things, quick-pulsing blood just underneath.

_Please, keep up the façade_, he silently willed the girl, knowing that if Yubaba scented fear, nothing good could follow.

--

Chihiro hoped her face was not quite as flushed as it felt, but she couldn't be certain. Her lips were dry, the skin at that perfect tension where the right word would cause it to split. She resisted the urge to lick them back to comfort, as it was such an obviously nervous gesture. No, she would just be careful when she spoke.

"A job, you say?" Yubaba was calmly lighting a second cigarette as she got to her feet. As soon as the flame on her fingertip went out, that hand was briskly smoothing her loosened hairs back into place. "Why on earth should I show you the same kindness as before?"

Chihiro swallowed hard against something sudden and dark at the back of her throat, the taste of bile souring her mouth.

"You showed me no kindness."

The words were out before she could think, before she could close her painfully tight lips. It was as though the very air quickened; Yubaba faced Chihiro directly, her own brittle mouth pulling at the cigarette almost urgently, eyes ablaze.

"Why, you insolent little wretch," she hissed, smoke entangled with her words. "I ought to give you a corkscrew tail for that."

Even though several feet of emptiness separated them, Chihiro could still feel Haku tense at these words.

"Just give me a job. That's all I want." Her lip was split now, but there was no use in wincing.

Yubaba stepped closer to her, and closer, until Chihiro could make out every furrow in the old crone's face. Another puff on the cigarette sent plumes of acrid smoke filling the space between them.

"You know that I can't turn down anyone willing to work," Yubaba said very slowly, a shrewd blackness to her eyes. Her lips curled into an unpleasant smile. "But I can make life very difficult for you."

Chihiro clenched her jaw. "I only want a job." She would not rise to the bait, would not acknowledge the witch's threat.

Yubaba laughed once more, harshly. She raised her hand very swiftly, and Chihiro gasped, flinching, preparing to be struck. Haku stepped towards them, some strangled word sounding trapped from his throat.

"Here." From Yubaba's withered hand, a magnificent, creamy scroll of parchment appeared and unfurled itself. Lines upon lines of barely legible script filled most of the page, but there was a long, thin dash inked at the bottom.

"Just sign it. I'll find something for you to do."

--

Haku didn't like the dark promise in his former master's voice. He knew all and nothing of her capabilities; he'd seen her do terrible things, and he'd seen her act with startling mercy. But that was the thing about a very wise, very old witch such as Yubaba; she played by no rules, and had no boundaries set. Perhaps he'd seen only the middle of the spectrum.

It was that particular thought that made his heart swell up into his throat, the sight of the jet-black quill appearing in Chihiro's hand. The word "stop" was suddenly like hot metal on his tongue, almost begging to be spat out.

But then it was done. Her signature shone with unnatural light, and Yubaba's lips twisted into a strange smile as she ran a hand over it.

"You are to go by 'Sen' again, is that understood?"

Chihiro nodded, something vaguely sad coming into her face. "Yes, ma'am."

Yubaba's smile stretched. "Very good. Haku, take her downstairs to the baths. Tell Leiko she has a new assistant."

With that, the witch turned away, dismissing them both with a wave of her hand.

--

The air was weighted with unspoken words as Chihiro and Haku made their way back to the elevator. Chihiro could still feel her pulse, like a dragonfly, drowning in her throat. She swallowed forcefully, trying to remain calm.

_You did it. You got a job, you survived the meeting with Yubaba_, she told herself as she inhaled, slowly and deeply. _Just keep it together._

She walked into the elevator, and leaned against the back wall, watching Haku as he entered. He carefully avoided her eyes as he swung the lever, and the doors shut with a hollow clanging sound.

"Don't let me forget my name."

She'd spoken the thought the very instant it materialized, and consequently her voice was raw and pleading, not layered with the careful neutrality she would've preferred. Suddenly the elevator felt twice as large, her distance from Haku doubled, the air shuddering with tension.

She cleared her throat audibly, her cheeks burning. "Please," she added softly.

Haku hadn't moved, but his jaw was visibly tight. He was staring straight in front of him, blankly regarding the lever; his hand clenched it so forcefully that his knuckles looked bloodless. She crossed the small space of the elevator, until she was hovering awkwardly at his left shoulder, painfully aware of his averted eyes.

"Haku?" she whispered, placing a tentative hand on his arm. He inhaled sharply at her touch, but made no response. She could feel his muscles twitch beneath her, as though he was trying not to jerk away.

_What is going on?_ she wondered, a lump forming in her throat.

"Haku." It wasn't a whisper this time; it came out somehow harsh, burnt at the edges with hurt that surprised even Chihiro. "Haku, _look at me_." No pleading, just a sudden wash of anger, like boiling vinegar creeping up her throat.

She could hear him breathing hard, but there was no reply, no move to meet her eyes.

"Damn it, Haku!" She clamped her hand down on his shoulder and shoved him so that he turned slightly sideways, his back meeting the side of the elevator. She grabbed his other shoulder, so that she was nearly holding him in place, and looked up into his face.

His eyes were startlingly bright, green-gray, like summer storm clouds. She could read nothing in those eyes; the walls had returned, sealing her away from any and every thought. His lips were parted, slightly open between speaking and grimacing.

"What happened?" she asked hotly, so very angry with him, and just as angry with herself for allowing tears to form in the corners of her eyes. "What did I do to make you despise me?"

--

Chihiro's face was flushed pink, her chest heaving as she breathed. Several strands of hair fell to curl gently along her strong jaw, just above which her mouth was shut into a stony line. She was furious, that most powerful ire borne of injury, and it was both painful and beautiful to see.

He wanted to gently cup her face and lower his mouth to hers, kiss the spot where her lip had broken open, and he wanted to tell her that he could never despise her. That he far from despised her.

But he had to ignore the sudden, persistent want in his blood. Keeping her safe was everything, and she wouldn't be safe if he let himself be lost in the faint, flowery scent of her hair.

"Unhand me." He tried to keep his voice steady, tried to thread some of his dragon's power into the words, at the same time afraid that he sounded rougher than he'd wished.

Chihiro continued to hold his gaze for another long moment, her eyes shimmering and dark. Her hands slid down his arms, excruciatingly slow, and he had to take a careful breath to stop himself from reacting to the sensation. Then the contact was gone, and she simply stood in front of him, her entire face hardened, cooled somehow.

The elevator stopped abruptly, but Chihiro had a strange sort of poise, not even flinching as the cart hit the bottom of the shaft.

"As you wish," she said flatly, her voice unbearably cold. She turned sharply away from him and stepped out of the elevator. He could only watch her go, feeling a pointed ache behind his ribs.

--

Chihiro maintained a chilly silence as she followed Haku towards her new job. The steam from the baths always escaped from the enormous atrium, and so even several halls over, her skin felt damp, the air heavy.

Not speaking with Haku left an uncomfortable void that made the trek seem endlessly long, but finally they arrived. The steam hung low in the air, thicker this close to the baths; it created swells that buffeted against Chihiro as she walked through the doorway, leaving her feeling as though she'd taken a shower and only half-dried herself.

Skirting several tubs full of guests, Haku led her to a partitioned area at the rear of the giant room. Behind the screens, several women knelt at the edge of the very largest bath, tending to three guests that together had upwards of fifteen limbs.

"Leiko," Haku called, his voice solid and flat. One of the women stood slowly, finishing her slow massage of the center spirit's temples. Chihiro heard her softly address the guest, excusing herself. She walked over to the pair of them, looking mightily irritated.

"What is it, Master Haku?" she said tightly, as though she were trying very hard not to snap at him, her superior. She jerked her head sideways, indicating the tub behind her. "I'm a little busy right now."

She did look frazzled; her eyes were hot and black as coal, full lips pressed forcefully together, as though clamped shut against sharper words. Her thick black hair was bundled messily at the nape of her neck, but even her coif was tired; several long strands had fallen out to straggle down nearly to her waist.

Haku made a derisive noise, and his hand suddenly clamped down on Chihiro's upper arm, nails biting into her. He shoved her forward, catching her off-guard, sending her pitching clumsily towards Leiko. She caught herself gracelessly, just a foot or two short of plowing straight into the other woman.

"This is Sen. Yubaba said to use her as you see fit."

Chihiro glanced back at Haku, fighting not to massage her arm. He wouldn't meet her eyes, but the look on his face said it all; clearly he wanted nothing to do with her. She was just another servant now.

Leiko sighed loudly, unapologetically, drawing Chihiro's attention back to her. "Things are crowded enough as it is, I think.."

Haku closed the distance separating him from Leiko, and Chihiro could see his lip curl back. He leaned in close to the woman, one hand grasping her beneath her chin.

"You are not paid to _think_."

A small sound escaped Chihiro before she could swallow it. She couldn't help it; she'd never before heard anyone speak with such cold arrogance. It was painful to hear such a voice issue from Haku's lips.

He snapped his head to look at her, and her breath caught in her throat. There was no longer a trace of warmth in his eyes; his gaze was an unfeeling, icy jade that made something within her want to scream. She wanted to tell him to snap out of it, to come back out of himself. But his expression made her voice die in her throat; he was looking at her as though he didn't know her, chilly disdain quirking his lips.

He turned back to Leiko, his hand dropping from her face.

"Find her something to do, or you will both answer to Yubaba." Leiko opened her mouth as though to protest, but Haku cut her off, sharply. "That is _final_."

With that, he turned away from the both of them and disappeared past the partition, leaving Chihiro with a feeling of heavy despair draping her like wet silk. She turned slowly to Leiko, as though moving through water. The woman did not look pleased to be stuck working with her, and there was a stinging distrust in her eyes.

"Humans aren't supposed to come near our guests," she snapped, hands clenched into fists against her hips. "Your scent offends them."

Chihiro was just beginning to bristle, feeling embarrassment and anger prickle over her skin, when Leiko's expression fell to astonishment, her mouth hanging slack. She sniffed the air, and frowned.

"But…you…you don't smell like a human," she said, bewildered, her voice immediately losing its sharpened edge. She took a step closer to Chihiro, inhaling deeply through her nose as though she were a dog scenting a trail.

"I've eaten your food before," Chihiro offered nervously, leaning away from Leiko's face. "I'm sure that's why…" She let her voice trail off as the other woman stepped backwards, face taut with suspicion.

Chihiro braced herself for a scathing reply, but Leiko only turned around and strode back towards the tub, beckoning that she should follow.

--

Haku was supposed to be greeting the new arrivals at the entrance, but he had little doubt that his smiles and bows looked as wooden as they felt. His face was tight as he forced his lips to curve over and over again; at the moment, he couldn't really even imagine smiling with true sincerity.

_It's irreparable now, you know, _a scathing voice whispered against the insides of his skull. _Even if you explain, she'll never forgive you_.

He bowed low to an earth spirit as she trundled by, heat flaring in his veins at the thought of how he'd behaved towards Chihiro. He unfolded himself from his bow, and was startled to see that the earth spirit had stopped directly in front of him. Her lined face, very like clay in its texture, was pressed into a gentle frown.

"Young man," she rasped, her voice like leaves scraping across dry ground. "I can smell your anger." Her eyes were the color of shadowed trees, and concern softened their edges. "What has happened to you, that your blood scents the air so?"

Haku bowed again, willing his face not to flush. He swallowed hard before speaking from behind a curtain of his hair.

"It is petty. Please, do not trouble yourself with the trials of a servant." He unbent at the waist, but kept his eyes downcast, concentrating on the hem of the spirit's fibrous dressings. "Allow me to show you to your room."

Just then, he felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to meet the spirit's eyes, like wind flowing beneath his chin. It felt almost like a hand guiding his face irresistibly upwards, until his gaze once again met that of his guest. She was smiling at him almost sadly, and in that moment he knew that she could read his thoughts as clearly as if they were inked across his face.

"Do not fret, Kohaku."

Haku blinked, surprise burning down the length of his throat like a swallow of sake. No one called him by his true name. _No one_. He guarded it too closely.

She laid a gnarled hand like a tree root at the crook of his arm, and squeezed gently. She leaned in close, so that her breath passed over his ear when she spoke.

"After a time, all will be well again." Her hand closed tighter around him, balancing on the edge separating mere pressure from pain. Her power flitted across his skin like invisible moths.

"_Do not fear her_."

With that, she released his arm, and brushed past him, trailing behind her a smell of flowers baking in the sun. _What was _that _supposed to mean?_ he wondered, her words echoing in his ears like the clang of bells. He whirled around, a protest swelling at the back of his throat, but she was already gone.


	13. Misery

Everything hurt.

Breathing was a trial; every inch of skin felt like a bruise. Chihiro couldn't say exactly how many consecutive hours she'd spent giving massages, draining used bathwater, scrubbing out tubs and heating fresh towels, but it was a sufficient amount of work to make her every muscle sting as she moved.

She didn't think anything had ever felt so good as lying down on her cot at the first pale hint of dawn, too tired to worry that she hadn't eaten all night. All that mattered was pulling the blanket up over her head and losing herself to the deep, long sleep of the bone-tired. A sleep so complete that, thankfully, Chihiro was spared any dreams of Haku.

The day had already bloomed hot and bright by the time she woke, slightly after noon. The sky was entirely clear, so blue it almost hurt to look at, and the sunlight baked pleasantly into her skin the instant she set foot outside. She was awake all of three minutes, however, before Haku's face simmered to the forefront of her thoughts, sharp and hard in contrast with the sleepy white noise otherwise filling her head.

_It's dangerous to be so wrong about a person when I have no other friends in this place, _she thought, her throat tightening. She glanced back into the bedroom, where Lin laid buried in her sheets, still soundly asleep.

_Even Lin doesn't trust me_. The thought left a heavy, unpleasant taste on Chihiro's tongue. It was true. And to be perfectly fair, who in their right mind _would_ trust someone who couldn't even remember her face?

Chihiro took as long as she dared to scrounge up something to eat, lingering out of sight in the pantry with a lukewarm dumpling in hand. She trailed her fingers along a row of unlabeled glass bottles, maybe sake or vinegar, listening to other servants' footsteps cross back and forth outside.

She hated the thought of what awaited her once she left the small room. Dreadfully few minutes from now, Leiko would be barking at her to fetch a fresh load of towels, which would be so hot and damp that the first stack would have her sweating; or perhaps she would have to dispose of buckets upon buckets of dirty water, pinching every muscle in her back and accidentally splashing herself with other people's filth.

For the moment, Chihiro decided to bar such unpleasant realities from her mind, continuing her languid survey of the pantry's contents. There were enormous sacks of uncooked rice, glass jars of peppers, bundles of herbs. Cooking wouldn't have been such a bad job, she didn't think; at least she could end the day smelling like food, rather than worm salts and old bathwater.

Sighing, she lowered herself onto a short wooden barrel and took a large bite of her breakfast, which had now cooled completely. She knew it was almost too much to hope for that she not run into Haku at all that day, but she found herself hoping just the same. The dumpling was somewhat difficult to swallow, as though her throat was too dry to permit the comfortable passage of food, and even after one bite her stomach churned mutinously.

_It'll be all right_, she thought to herself; even unspoken, the words felt hollow. She managed to choke down the rest of the dumpling, all the while half-wishing she hadn't bothered, and was absently licking the gumminess from her fingertips when she heard her name being shouted from the kitchen.

"Sen_?_ Are you in here?"

It was Lin, Chihiro realized almost instantly, and relief unclenched her stomach. She slipped carefully out of the pantry, taking care that no one see her leaving, lest they think she was stealing sake or something equally absurd.

"I'm here," she replied, coming into view of the kitchen staff and feeling her cheeks instantly heat under their eyes. Leiko had told her that she had no human stench, so the others' scrutiny stemmed from nothing so simple as disgust. They watched her as though she were something _lesser_, some weakling that was wasting their time and breathing their air.

Lin crossed the room to Chihiro, her expression bland. "Where were you?" Chihiro had scarcely opened her mouth to lie when Lin waved her hand impatiently.

"Never mind. Leiko's looking for you, though. I'd find her soon, if I were you. She's not the most patient woman."

Chihiro could only nod dumbly. It didn't appear that Lin would be getting her a different job any time soon; not that she'd really expected it, but now that vain hope was dashed as quickly as it came into being.

She swallowed hard, her throat still feeling narrow and dry. "Thanks." She tried not to look at Lin as she walked past, feeling the entire kitchen watch her leave.

"Welcome."

Chihiro bent at the waist in a stiff bow, her eyes trained on the earth spirit's sandy feet.

"How may I help you?" She straightened up again with a smile. Her voice felt unnaturally high as she forced the words out, knowing Leiko and the others were watching her every move. "A private room for a rest, perhaps? Or maybe a soothing bath and massage?"

The spirit, in the form of a very plain, dirty-looking woman, shook her head. Dust fell from her long yellow hair.

"I'm hungry," she said slowly, her voice like steps staggered through gravel. Chihiro nodded with another flat smile. _This spirit must be rich_, she thought. _Yubaba would never allow someone so filthy in here otherwise._

"If you'll allow me to show you to a room, I can take your order to the kitchen for you while you have a rest."

The woman sighed her assent, her black-brown eyes drifting shut momentarily.

Chihiro bowed again, straightened up again, and abruptly had to catch herself with a hand braced against the nearest wall. It was enough to make her faint, the blood rushing in and out of her head each time she bent over. And she did so plenty, figuring it was safer to bow too often than too seldom. _I should've eaten more_, she thought with a grimace.

"Is something wrong, Sen?" The disdain in Leiko's voice had a syrupy coating for the benefit of their guest. "If you're not feeling up to your usual tasks, I'd be happy to reassign you elsewhere."

Chihiro gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to turn around, knowing Leiko would be smirking. "If you'll just follow me then," she forced herself to say brightly, and led the spirit away from the others' ill-disguised laughter.

After delivering the new guest safely to her room, and putting in her strange request for six bowls of plain miso broth, Chihiro took a moment to attempt to relax. The particular hallway she'd chosen was nearly silent, with only two of the rooms occupied. The steam from the baths didn't quite reach this far, and for that Chihiro was grateful. Her skin was already clammy enough with cooled sweat.

Leaning against a solid portion of the wall, Chihiro slid slowly to the floorboards. She felt hopeless, and nauseous, and exhausted, and no sooner had these notions occurred to her then she was suddenly choking on a lump in her throat, blinking back a hot veil of tears. She hated crying, especially when she wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to stop, so she tried to breathe deeply enough to regain her composure.

The worst part was that she _knew_ that she would have to face Haku sometime that day. Preferably not when she was crumpled on the floor sniffling and trying to dry her eyes, but she felt that almost no amount of bad luck would surprise her at this point.

_I don't even know why I'm here_, she thought miserably. If she only had a purpose, or just one concrete reason that she could understand, the rest would be tolerable. But with no sense of direction, no allies, not even Haku…She gulped back a hiccuping sob, feeling incredibly pathetic. _No more crying. _

"I'd better get back to work," she mumbled to no one, heaving herself to her aching feet. She dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve, and swallowed hard once more. The soup would be ready any minute, and it certainly wouldn't do to keep her hungry guest waiting. The very least she could do was perform her job well enough to keep Leiko happy.

Haku could not recall a time when he'd felt more awful. He was both miserably tired and oddly jittery, feeling as though he'd not slept a wink and had downed an entire pot of coffee to compensate. While it was true that he'd had no more than three or four fitful hours of rest, he could not account for the strange tension that was knotting up his insides, like a leaden weight tethered to ropes threading through him, twisting and smothering.

He'd spent just about the entire night thinking of Chihiro, picturing again and again the moment he'd shoved her at Leiko, hardened his gaze to betray nothing, and all the while his stomach was turning sour and shrinking. He could scarcely bear to remember the look on her face, the utter hopeless shock slackening her features. Was it worth it? Was breaking her heart and making her hate him _worth_ the relative safety of having nothing to do with one another? Was it really a better fate than whatever Yubaba could invent?

Haku massaged his right shoulder lightly, trying to relieve some of the knotting in his muscles. He had to go on thinking he'd done the right thing, or he'd simply cease to function. Besides, it was far too late to apologize. He knew he had crafted his betrayal perfectly; his talent for feigning disdain was utterly unmatched after his years in Yubaba's thrall, normally second only to his ability to remain unswayed by emotion. However, he feared that guilt was more than capable of ruining him this time.

He made his way to the kitchen before beginning his shift, thinking that perhaps some tea would help relax at least the physical effects of his distress. Moments later, as he leaned over an empty portion of counter-space to sip at his drink, a hand clamped suddenly onto his shoulder, grip so firm that he winced. He turned around quickly.

"What did you do?" Lin asked flatly, glaring at him. Haku set his cup down so abruptly that scalding-hot tea slopped onto his hand, but he gritted his teeth against a groan of pain.

"I was just enjoying a hot beverage before work," he said, with little inflection. "Did it appear differently to you?" He allowed himself the tiniest of smirks.

Lin's hands were on her hips, an all-too-familiar stance that meant the next few moments were going to be rather unpleasant for him; being promoted to head of the kitchen staff had done nothing to soften her infamous bluntness.

"Sen. What did you do?" she asked again, slower this time, as though the question may have been too complicated at first. Hearing Sen's name swiftly reversed all the good the relaxing tea had done, and Haku fought not to slump over in response.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, managing to sound calm. His mouth had gone sour.

Lin rolled her eyes and heaved an enormous sigh. "I see. Well, it might interest you to know that she was hiding in the pantry before work this morning, and she looks awful." She scowled and fixed him once more with that intense glare. "I suppose that had nothing to do with _you_."

Haku felt his face go slack for a split second, picturing Chihiro crying somewhere alone, tiredness sapping the color from her face and bruising her beneath her eyes. He quickly tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes at Lin.

"Perhaps you should be speaking to her about this, and not bothering _me_ with your petty concerns." He turned to leave, but Lin's hand was around his wrist in an instant, clenching like a steel cuff.

"If you hurt her, I will hurt you," she said slowly, her voice unnervingly soft and low. Had she shouted at the top of her lungs, she wouldn't have fazed Haku in the least; this menacing near-whisper was infinitely more effective.

Haku jerked his arm away from her. "I do not take kindly to threats. Mind your tone," he snapped. With that, he brushed past her and walked out of the kitchen as quickly as he could manage, all too aware that his eyes were suddenly brimming with an unfamiliar heat.


End file.
